<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>A Marriage Most Inconvenient by Rosella1356</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214889">A Marriage Most Inconvenient</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosella1356/pseuds/Rosella1356'>Rosella1356</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Child Soliders, Crack Fic, Dumbledore Bashing, F/M, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, Torture, crack fic treated seriously, marriage fic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:14:14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>87,850</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26214889</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosella1356/pseuds/Rosella1356</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Four death eaters are bound to be tortured to death upon Voldemort's death due to the various betrayals that they've done over the years. However, they find a loophole, the only problem is that only a family member can stand for the torture in their place. Somehow Hermione Granger is the only person that they can find who might both be able to survive four minutes of torture, but would do so for people who at one point were believed to be evil and working for Voldemort. So, she marries three of them and stands for the fourth as his daughter in law.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Severus Snape/Rabastan Lestrange, Hermione Granger/Rabastan Lestrange, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, Rabastan Lestrange/Severus Snape</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>282</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Marriage?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>To the friend that hyped this up for the past like month that its been in my head, this is for you!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Voldemort had only been dead for a week when Hermione gets roused from her sleep in the burrow by Mrs. Weasley. </p>
<p>	“Dear, dear. You know that Azkaban has to be rebuilt before any of the death eaters can be imprisoned or tried, and that young Mr. Zabini has offered to hold them all,” she hurriedly whispered trying to keep her daughter’s prying ears from being able to hear and try to intervene. </p>
<p>	Hermione blinks her eyes back into a wakeful state and tries to ignore the violent flinch that she undergoes from being woken up. She doesn’t need Molly to try to coddle her, or for Ron to claim that she was brave for withstanding torture. “Yes.”</p>
<p>	“Well, Mr. Zabini just flooed here and said that he believes there is a problem that you would be the most equipped to deal with,” she continued. </p>
<p>	Hermione wanted to scream, to pull her hair out and demand that an adult handle whatever issues happened now. She was still supposed to be a student. She wasn’t supposed to be the one that got dragged out of bed. “I’ll go, but you’re going to get both Harry and Ron there. I will not be doing this alone, especially since I don’t want to deal with whatever problem they’ve gotten themselves in. Has he already contacted Kingsley, since he’s the technical minister of magic at the moment?”</p>
<p>	Ginny jerked awake and stared at Hermione. “I’m coming,” she yelled.</p>
<p>	“No, you aren’t,” Hermione said. She won’t be responsible for more Weasleys when she has a gut feeling that this isn’t going to end well. She dragged her body out of the bed and ran her wand over her to transform her nightgown into a decent outfit for seeing the other people. This would hopefully be something she could still get some sleep after. At least that’s her best hope for everything. If this turns out to be false, she might cry. </p>
<p>	Harry met her at the top of the stairs and walked down with her to the fireplace. They both stood there waiting for Ron to make his way down. They’d go as the trio that people loved to label them as for this issue. </p>
<p>	Ron took a couple minutes, but he ended up standing right next to them. His eyes meet Hermione in a small hopeful manner. They’d had something that resembled a fight close to the beginning of the aftermath of the battle. She kissed him in the heat of the moment, but she didn’t want a relationship. Not right after he ran off without them, not when she still has several years of healing before she could even begin to make progress with what happened to her in Malfoy manor. </p>
<p>	She shook her head before flooing to Zabini’s house. Her eyes took in the familiar sights. She and Blaise had become allies of sort in Hogwarts, because she had cared enough to ask after them. Just because they were Slytherin didn’t mean that they were unfeeling, so she had reached. Turned out that Blaise was more than happy to reach back. </p>
<p>	Blaise greeted her with a hug, before stepping back to reveal Lucius, Severus, Draco, and one of the Lestrange brothers lying on the floor. Kingsley wasn’t too far behind looking very grave. <br/>	Narcissa stood off to the side and took in the golden trio. “If you can’t or won’t do anything, get right back out of this house. You don’t belong here.”</p>
<p>	“Before you start giving orders, how about you explain what’s happening,” Hermione snapped. The men on the floor all flinch, and Kingsley hung his head. So, she turned back to Blaise with a raised eyebrow. </p>
<p>	“Voldemort had just enough time before Harry killed him to make a final curse that was tied to his death. He said that the four people that he named should be tortured to death by the torture spell in the event of his death. He chose to name the four people he felt betrayed him the worst. Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, Rabastan Lestrange, and Draco Malfoy.”</p>
<p>	Ron nodded. “So, we’re called to stand witness to a whole bunch of death eaters dying. Sounds good to me,” he said.</p>
<p>	“No,” Kingsley moaned. “They deserve a trial. They deserve a voice, and they need to be tried by the public. That’s how this works. We don’t just cheer for death. That makes us just like the Dark Lord or Grindelwald. None of this will work if we start off our rule doing the same evils as before.”</p>
<p>	Hermione walked over the four men, so she could see the curse markings lying over their bodies clearly revealed by a spell. She doesn’t see any loose points that she could try to unravel to save them. So, her ability to detangle the spell wouldn’t help. “I couldn’t despell them before the curse arrived,” she pointed out. </p>
<p>	Narcissa nodded. “Luckily, I know the spell. Black libraries and specialties. However, I don’t have good news. The only way to change the outcome of the spell is for a family member to stand in front of them an endure the curse for a full minute.”</p>
<p>	Hermione raised a hand to cover her face for a long moment. “You could stand for Lucius and Draco then.”</p>
<p>	Narcissa shook her head slowly. “If the person standing in front of them cannot endure, then the spell continues. I’ve never been good with the crucio, a full minute, and I might still be alive, but I’ll be begging for the spell to stop, which means that the spell will interpret it as giving up. I’m not strong enough to hold those pleas inside when the pain is so high.”</p>
<p>	Harry cussed under his breath as he turned to Kingsley. “So what the hell will happen?”</p>
<p>	“If no one stands, then we die,” Snape snapped. The fact that he lived through Nagini’s bite only to end up still dying at the hands of the dark lord doesn’t sit right with him. He shouldn’t have to continuously suffer for the mistakes he made as a child, especially after he bothered to try to make amends. </p>
<p>	Hermione sighed. “Expecto Patronum.” She sent the patronus off to Luna with the message to get to Zabini manor as soon as she possibly could. Her eyes swept back over the men on the floor with a heavy sigh. “I can stand for Severus and Draco if I marry them, yes?”</p>
<p>	“Polygamy,” Ron shouted. 	</p>
<p>	“Still legal for purebloods and others within the ancient laws,” Blaise answered the unspoken question. </p>
<p>	“And because I would then be bound to Draco for better or worse for life, then I could stand for Lucius, because he would be my father.”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	Hermione turned her eyes back to the men on the floor. She bit down on her lip, and she choked off whatever words that wanted to come out in anger. Because she was so angry. She shouldn’t be the one having to make more sacrifices for this bloody war. Someone else should stand up and be willing to take the pain, but she knew that they wouldn’t, they never did before. </p>
<p>	Snape gulped down all of his hesitation. “Please, Ms. Granger. I have no right to ask this of you, I have no right to really do anything right now, but I must.”</p>
<p>	“What?”</p>
<p>	“Rabastan. He’s the only one of us who had to be tortured to be willing to take the mark, and he’s the only one who had to be controlled to be forced to kill. Please, don’t let him be the one to die. If you have to make me take his place, that’s the path that we must take, but please.”</p>
<p>	“Fuck,” she cursed. “Fuck.” She spun back around to Blaise. “Can you even marry three men with the laws in current form? Do you know?”</p>
<p>	“You can if you do the magical ceremony. My mother is a piece of work, but marriage magic I know.”</p>
<p>	“Can you perform the ceremony, Blaise?”</p>
<p>	Harry stepped forward and pulled Hermione in. “Four minutes is too much, Hermione. Even you cannot survive that without crying out for the pain to stop.”</p>
<p>	“Yes, she can,” Luna whispered, stepping out of the floo. Her eyes were soft, but her tone was firm. “It took six minutes under Bellatrix’s spell before she even cried out for mercy, but even then never for her to stop, because she knew the price of asking for that. We were all there, but I stood witness by counting.”</p>
<p>	Hermione’s smile couldn’t reach her eyes. “So, I could handle standing for all four of them then.”</p>
<p>	Luna nodded once. “But you wouldn’t be alone. I will stand next to you. I will hold you as the pain travels through your body. And once it is done, I will catch you as you fall. This I swear.”</p>
<p>	Ron jerked his head back and twisted his lips up into a snarl. “Are we ignoring that all of this is dependent on Hermione marrying a death eater, the bat of the dungeons who might be a decent bloke, but still a dick, and the ferret himself?”</p>
<p>	Blaise turned to Ron. “You are welcome in my house, only because Hermione asked for the golden trio to be present in case it was something that the three of you could change. It cannot be changed, and I could kick you out. Keep a civil tongue in your mouth, or I will.”</p>
<p>	“You don’t have a right to call her by her first name.”</p>
<p>	“He has the right,” Hermione said distracted by the near future. She’d be married in the next hour to three men, all of whom she has various reasons to be beyond wary of. Tonight was not a good night, and she really wished that she could blink or pinch herself and wake up from an awful dream, but that was not the main concern right now.</p>
<p>	Blaise turned away from Ron then, he doesn’t need to deal with that right now. Or ever, really. “Do you want a white dress? Mom has some sitting in her closet, and I need at least a couple minutes to gather the necessary bits for this marriage.”</p>
<p>	“Which room?”</p>
<p>	“The one she claimed as the damn closet,” he answered. Then, he looked over to Kingsley. “They can’t be bound for this spell and marriage to be binding. They have to enter of their own free will with their magic unbound.”</p>
<p>	“You are asking me to remove the bindings on four death eaters.”</p>
<p>	“Three, one of whom you know full well was a spy this whole time. One, who is a literal child. And one that you knew when he was younger. Is he really that different?”</p>
<p>	“Minister Shacklebolt, you have dragged me from my bed less than two days since I helped win you a war. You have begged me to fix a mess that should not be on my head to fucking fix. All I need to get you out of the mess that you made for yourself, is for you to let them go for about 12 minutes, so I can marry them. So I can then get tortured for four minutes. Then, I’m going to have to organize a defense for my three husbands, because I’ll be damned if I let a child rot in a cell. Or a good man who had to act the bad guy. Or someone who was under duress the entire time.”</p>
<p>	“You trust Snape’s word,” Narcissa murmured.	</p>
<p>	“What reason does he have for lying to me? What reason would he ask me to allow him to be tortured to death but the truth? If he was lying, he was being a true idiot, and regardless of my opinions on his childhood actions, I don’t believe you could ever call him an idiot.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan finally turned to look at the girl who was offering him so much more than he had ever deserved. He stared at her in her entirety. “You do not have to fight for me. You owe me no allegiance.”</p>
<p>	Hermione looked down upon him and shook her head. “I owe you nothing, except that no one else will stand for you, which means that I must. I don’t want a dress, Blaise. This isn’t my wedding. This is some bullshit ceremony to save four peoples lives. If I ever want to get married properly with any of them or if they give me leave to introduce another into our lovely polygamous marriage, I’ll wear a dress.”</p>
<p>	Draco winced from where he was chained. “The marriage ceremony that Blaise will use to bond us, won’t allow the second option. If you want any part of this to be close to a wedding, this is probably going to be your best shot, Granger.”</p>
<p>	Hermione threw her hands in the air. She really couldn’t catch a break today. She felt Luna’s hand on her shoulder. </p>
<p>	Luna placed a small barrette into her hand. “Something borrowed.”</p>
<p>	Hermione laughed as she clipped up her hair. She waved her hand, and her transfigured night clothes become a wonderful little dress. Nothing too fancy, but white. </p>
<p>	Harry tilted his head to the side and searched around the room for a moment, before finding a handkerchief. He colored it blue, and tucked it into Hermione’s dress pocket. “Something blue.”</p>
<p>	Blaise rolled his eyes and tossed her one of the family rings from his right hand. “Something old.”</p>
<p>	Heads turn back and forth as Hermione got a softer smile on her face. Snape strained against the chains until he found the potion recipe that happened to be in his pocket still when the battle occurred. “Something new. Kind of appeals to the scholarly nature of you versus the normal something new.”</p>
<p>	Hermione folded the paper and slipped it into her bag. She studied Snape for a second before shaking her head. “I am putting your name on it.”</p>
<p>	“Obliged, although as my wife you could just claim it with no problems.”</p>
<p>	Blaise left the room and comes back with several candles and nine ribbons. He doesn’t look thrilled, but he managed to keep his face neutral. “Does anyone have an objection to the wedding taking place?”</p>
<p>	Kingsley waved his hand and the magical locks on their shackles fall to the ground. He shook where he stood but offered no objection. This was the best solution he was going to find that wasn’t going to result in him getting thrown from his office in anger from most of his voters after they find out that he allowed multiple death eaters to die while under his careful guard. </p>
<p>	Harry grimaced, but he stepped to the side to allow Hermione to be in a circle with her husbands and Blaise.</p>
<p>	“Several,” Ron stated. “But, evidently they’re just going to be ignored.”</p>
<p>	“I listened Ron, I just found that your reasons weren’t going to be enough to stop me.”</p>
<p>	“So, you won’t date me because I left you during a hunt for horcruxes with one part of Voldemort’s frankly evil soul around my neck. But you will marry three death eaters just to save them from gruesome deaths.”</p>
<p>	Hermione dropped her head onto the nearest shoulder which happened to be Draco. She barely stopped the sob from ripping out of her lungs, because Ron wasn’t wrong. </p>
<p>	Draco caught her from slumping over and showing any weakness. She’d have to learn to hide that once they were all married and out in public. The press was going to try to eat her alive for marrying three death eaters and heirs to various large estates. They were going to have to be a united front, and that would be difficult for all of them. </p>
<p>	He glances up to meet his mother’s eyes. “Could you do me a favor and throw Weasley back through that floo?”</p>
<p>	Narcissa brushes her dress and walks over, but Ron stomps through on his own regard. </p>
<p>	Hermione turned back to Blaise. “Time to get married.”</p>
<p>	Blaise waved his wand and the candles floated to the four cardinal directions. Another swish of his wand and each of them had flames blowing in the wind. Non-verbal spells, the little study group, they had formed learned quickly that it was easier to catch various objects if your opponent didn’t hear you call out.</p>
<p>	Hermione sat up and stared. “I suppose I have to go first.”</p>
<p>	“Not really,” Blaise answered distracted by trying to get the largest ribbon out and ready. “You’re all marrying each other, so for better or for worse as long as you live, you’ll have three husbands, and they’ll have two husbands and a wife.”</p>
<p>	“Chaotic alignment,” Narcissa commented. </p>
<p>	“Not preferred for the ceremony. But still within the guidelines of possible to bond.”</p>
<p>	Hermione snorted. She looked over to Narcissa and met her eyes. “Three Slytherins and one Gryffindor. This must be a new record.”</p>
<p>	“Two Slytherins and One Ravenclaw,” Kingsley corrected softly.</p>
<p>	“Great,” Hermione said. “I didn’t even know my husband’s house.”</p>
<p>	“Not your fault, Ms. Granger. You didn’t know me, you shouldn’t know me. In fact if the fates were kind, you’d have never known my name,” Rabastan said attempting to comfort her. </p>
<p>	“The fates be kind,” Draco volleys. “The world would implode from the very idea.”</p>
<p>	Severus snorted as Blaise continues to untangle the ribbon. “Not likely. The fates would merely curse the one speaking even further.”</p>
<p>	“I don’t think so,” Hermione whispered. “The fates can be kind, they just have to be resolute. They can give you happiness and pain. They can’t give you just one.”</p>
<p>	“Oh, how do you figure?”</p>
<p>	“I still have friends. If the fates weren’t kind at all, I’d be alone in my suffering. I’d be alone with my nightmares, instead of having Ginny to rouse me when the panic causes my magic to lash across the room. I’d be alone to deal with the cuts on my arm determined to cause me to suffer. Harry still helps me every morning put salve on a magically cursed wound, we both know will never be healed.”</p>
<p>	Severus nodded. “I suppose if the fates were never kind, I wouldn’t have students who do care about my fate. I wouldn’t have been able to stop some of the torture at Hogwarts. I would have just been helpless to watch. That’s better than what it could be.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan shook his head. “I don’t have much that could be considered kind.”</p>
<p>	“You aren’t lying dead on the floor. You weren’t the one married to Bellatrix,” Draco pointed out.</p>
<p>	Hermione stared at his eyes. Brown just like hers, but the gateway into the mind. She could slip inside, she’d learned how at some point. Instead, she just stared for a long moment. “You are no longer under their control. Their control died with them. If the fates weren’t kind, that wouldn’t be true.”</p>
<p>	“You’re right. The fates could have been more cruel, and we’d still be taking the pile of shit handed to us.”</p>
<p>	“Child soldiers,” Draco murmured. “Both sides used them. And the children themselves just hope that they make it out alive.” His eyes cleared momentarily for him to turn to Blaise. “Do we know who all died?”</p>
<p>	Luna’s the one who answered him with unshed tears in her eyes. “Not yet. The whole place is still a mess, and no one knows where some of the bodies were dragged by the werewolves.”</p>
<p>	Draco flinched. “Do you know whether someone was able to catch Gregory?”</p>
<p>	Hermione shook her head softly. “I couldn’t dive for both of you. I was on a broom, it was a miracle, I got you out of that room.”</p>
<p>	“Fiendfire,” he said.</p>
<p>	“One of the few things that can destroy a horcrux, and if those weren’t destroyed, he could have risen again. The sacrifices that war must demand.”</p>
<p>	Kingsley froze in his spot as he turned to Hermione. “You started that fire.”</p>
<p>	“Just as I robbed Gringotts. I followed no laws during the battle. They were no longer valid. All that mattered was making sure that are side came up on top before they could get another one of us to torture, before they could enslave all of my people, before any more dead bodies appeared on the footsteps of the stairs.”</p>
<p>	Luna turned to Kinsley. “War breeds evil as peace breeds complicity. We were bred during war, you were bred during peace. Learn to know both, and you will hold the world in your hands.”</p>
<p>	Blaise draped the ribbon around each other their necks and let the end hang loose for a moment. All of the rest of the handfasting was going to get complicated, so he needed that ribbon to be perfect before he could even think about beginning. “Hermione Granger, you stand without parents to be given away to the magic that bonds us all. Do you willing accept magic’s blessing for this marriage?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	“Severus Snape, you stand here on this night with darkness clouding your mind, but still in full control of your actions. Do you willing accept magic’s blessing for this marriage?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	“Draco Malfoy, you stand here as the only one with family. You stand here the most open to a different path, one without magic to guide you, yet still you stand here with the others in front of magic’s will. Do you willing accept magic’s blessing for this marriage?”</p>
<p>	Draco’s eyes flashed up to his mother’s almost pleading for another path, because after all he is still just a child. But there is no other path for him to take. There is no doubt that without taking this option, he would be dead before morning, and something about all of this suggests that this wouldn’t be accepted, but he has to trust someone. “Yes.”</p>
<p>	“Rabastan Lestrange, for the first time in centuries you stand of your own free will in front of magic to be blessed in marriage for all eternity. Do you willing accept magic’s blessing for this marriage?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	The ribbon around all of them started glowing faintly. The light it emitted gave the whole group a slightly ethereal stance, and Blaise knew that the first part of this was going to work out just fine. </p>
<p>	Blaise tapped Hermione’s left wrist, and she held it up. He wrapped a single white band around her wrist, and he turned to Severus. His body still tense as he knew the words that he had to say. He had to be the spokesperson for the magic itself, and hope that it would willing bind them in his name, because if this failed, then legally he couldn’t marry them. He could still allow her to be their wife to save them, but the government would have to hunt them down later for breaking that law too. </p>
<p>	His eyes met Severus’. And he knew that the professor had finally figured out which process he was using to do this. “Magically pure, yet tainted by evil she is. Will you take her regardless? For better or for worse until the day one of you dies? Will you stand by her in sickness and in health regardless of how often one or the other wins out?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	“Will you Hermione Granger take him for better or for worse? Knowing that some of the crimes that lay on his hands he participated willingly in? Can you accept him regardless of what secrets may come out at later dates?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	Blaise tied the white ribbon around Severus’ wrist as well, and as he hoped the magic jumped from them and the flames of the North candle turn blue. One bond accepted. He could continue with Hermione, and in fact that was probably the better cause for their nerves, but if he didn’t go in the order that magic wanted, something might go wrong.</p>
<p>	He picked up the blue ribbon and taps Severus’ already bound wrist and he lifted it. The blue ribbon gets tied to the wrist in a simple bind. He turned to Rabastan with his face haunted. “Rabastan, before you sits a man who has darkness tainting him despite your warnings. You face the man that you tried to save and failed. Can you take him until the end of his days, knowing that your words alone will not stop him from dragging you or your loved ones into the danger?”</p>
<p>	“Yes. The sins do not lie on his hands alone.”</p>
<p>	Blaise fights back the snort that is only his and not the magic’s response. Of course all of this was ridiculous. All of this has many more reasons than anyone else. That’s part of the reason that this is important that all of them do this in the correct order. “Severus, this man has already suffered greatly at your hands. Can you bind him to you for eternity knowing that there are pains among you that no amount of magic or apologies can get rid of, only heal over?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	The blue ribbon tied itself to Rabastan’s wrist without Blaise giving any sort of help. That was a good sign, but still Blaise was on edge until the North candle settled with a white flame. Next he reached for a red ribbon. He tied it to Rabastan’s wrist and his eyes don’t even lift anymore to face the person he would be speaking to. The hands are just tools of magic, now. He was no longer the standard child, and this was why this spell is forbidden to beginners. </p>
<p>	“Draco, you are young and healthy. Will you stand by a partner many years your senior who may or may not be broken beyond any hope of saving?”</p>
<p>	“Yes, for eternity.” Draco knew now that the magic was settled over all of their skin. The second that this marriage was completed or destroyed, Hermione would either have three husbands, or they would likely all be injured from playing with natural magics that haven’t been touched in years. </p>
<p>	“Draco is just a child. Can you swear to love him with every inch that you can spare each day as it grows and to never shrink away from the duties as a husband that you will have?”</p>
<p>	Rabastan blinked only once, but he offered no resistance, as he placed his palm into Blaise’s hand. “Yes, that I can swear easily. May the magic bind me.”</p>
<p>	Blaise watched as the ribbon tied itself neatly between them. The south candle pops up with the same blue flame that tells him that as of this moment, the fates are still with them. He’s concerned for what happens next, but he won’t let that stop him.</p>
<p>	Another ribbon found its way into his hands. This time it is a faded pink ribbon, and he’s almost positive they weren’t colored when he grabbed them, which is fantastic, truly. Not going to be chaotic at all. Nope, everything is almost normal. </p>
<p>	Draco’s wrist was wrapped with the utmost caution as if the ribbon doesn’t want to burn any of them. The faded ribbon holding on in the time that it took for Blaise and the magic to find words. “Draco, do you take Hermione as your wife to have and to hold regardless of blood, regardless of the pressures of the outside world freely?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	“Hermione, magic bound you long before you were born, but without warning. This world is not yours, yet it as that is left to you. Can you marry the boy who would have shunned you out of this place?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.” Her eyes betrayed nothing, but Blaise knew her. He knew that she must want to scream at the top of her lungs, yet was instead sitting composed and unjudging as she could make herself. She didn’t want this, but she wasn’t going to stop any of it from happening. </p>
<p>	The purple ribbon slid over the pink one binding them together as the purple stretched out to Rabastan. Neither of the two looked down or away from each other. The candles all burning white in the background with Blaise holding onto the magic with a thin level of control. Too close to the ending of the spell, for anything but magic to be allowed within the space. </p>
<p>	“Hermione, you do not know this man, you have no reason to trust him, but will you give him your soul and trust that he will care for you as a husband bounded by magic is sworn to do?”</p>
<p>	“Yes,” she hissed. </p>
<p>	“Rabastan, this girl is everything you were told to hate. The things that you were tortured for. Can you handle being bound to her for eternity, knowing that she would have been the cause for your suffering at a different point in your life?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	The final ribbon, a deep blue tied across Draco’s arm, and everyone knew where it was gong. “Draco, this man was supposed to be a protector for you, and magic feels that duty has failed. Can you take someone who has caused you this much pain? Can you accept him for who he is?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	“Severus,” Blaise said turning his whole body to the one man who will have to do something strange for every sense of the word. “This is your godson, although not all that younger than you, only by about two decades, for our people that is a short gap. Can you marry him knowing that magic will bind you, knowing that eventually actions will have to be taken?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	Magic exploded all around them, and Blaise was thrown from the circle. The magic touched each one of the ribbons and the circle blew in the wind. For a moment, it seemed as if it would rip them apart. Then, Hermione stretched her hand up and touched the billowing winds. She calmed the fates of magic with a touch. </p>
<p>	The magic died all around them and on each other their arms were runes that made out their names scorched on their skin. </p>
<p>	Hermione met Harry’s eyes, and she grinned. “If you make a bargain twice, does it make you brave or a fool?”</p>
<p>	Harry met her eyes. She watched as the realization falls into him. “Twice now, you’ve asked magic to bless you, knowing that the cost of magic denying you would be death.”</p>
<p>	“And twice now magic has blessed me.”</p>
<p>	Severus fell forward, even without the chains binding his magic, he had been without for long enough that he couldn’t actually feel the magic, but now he can feel his and the others. It was almost as if he woke up with everything making more sense than the rest of his life.</p>
<p>	Rabastan reached forward and grabs hold of Severus before he can actually try to use any magic. Most of the people in the room wouldn’t care, but some of them would probably panic, and he didn’t need his husband to die the first night before they survive. </p>
<p>	Hermione glanced over to Luna, and Luna leaned forward to help Hermione to her feet. “How long, Hermione?”</p>
<p>	“I don’t know. Will you keep count?”</p>
<p>	Blaise shook his head. “She’ll be keeping you upright and holding on to you, so the pain won’t cause you to fall forward immediately. I’ll keep count, and she’ll keep you.”</p>
<p>	Narcissa stared at the muggleborn in front of her with a gleam in her eyes. “If you fail, they die.”</p>
<p>	Lucius turned to his wife with disbelief. “Honey, not the time.”</p>
<p>	Narcissa ignores her husband. This was the last chance the girl had to choose to only stand for only some of them rather than all of them. She’d seen people go insane with less torture. She’d watched her sister gleefully cause people to go made. Not to mention, Hermione would have to avoid begging for the pain to end.</p>
<p>	Luna cast her eyes over to Narcissa. “Just because you would not be Hercules, does not mean that no one can be Hercules. Just because Hera would win the battle, doesn’t mean she will win the war.”</p>
<p>	Hermione whacked Luna’s arm. She did not need bickering when she’s preparing to be tortured to save a group of people that she had limited experience with, but that she couldn’t allow to just die. You could make amends as long as you were alive, and she’d be damned if a spy that won the war died before making those amends, or if a child solider would be condemned for actions taken under duress. </p>
<p>	Luna blinked. “Last time it took six minutes before she even began to scream out that she didn’t have the answers your sister was looking for. She lasted long enough for the rest of us in that dungeon to come up with a better plan. That torture was before your sister started carving into her with a cursed blade, so trust me Mrs. Malfoy, she will not falter.”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded once. Then, the pain overtook her. That was all the spell needed to deem the terms completed. The pain was blinding, and she could hear her own voice screaming out in pain. She could distantly hear the count in the distance. When it hit 30, she forced a bitter smile on her face. </p>
<p>	Luna braced the writhing body in her arms. She didn’t let the witch fall to the ground to hurt herself further. They both were shaking in the pure force of magic wanting to find purchase to force out a surrender, but this magic would not win. </p>
<p>	Hermione bit down on her lip at some point, and blood filled her mouth. That gave her something to think about that wasn’t the pain. The pain was temporary. Nothing could end her, because she was blessed. Nothing could end her before she survived. Those were the simple rules that she followed. As long as fates and men bothered to keep her. </p>
<p>	“60,” Blaise yelled to be heard over the damn screaming. He was confident that he would never be able to actually get her screams out of his head anymore. He wouldn’t put it past his mind to torture him with the screams of his friend who bothered to stand for those who could not stand for themselves. </p>
<p>	“Draco,” Hermione spit out. She watched as the magic released him from the bounds of the spell. The curse had been upheld for one of the four. She just had to keep the pain from clouding her enough to beg for mercy. </p>
<p>	When her mouth fell open as if more words would start pouring out with the shattered screams, Luna dragged them both down to their knees. Her mouth ends up pressed up against Hermione’s ear in a desperate attempt to remind her of where they are. Her body was there too, just not part of the spell. Her friend was not alone. </p>
<p>	Hermione bit back the words. She bit back the curses that were on her mind. She focused on the steady count of numbers. 75, meant that she was almost to the 3/8 mark, and she could make that. She was almost there. She was always almost there. 90, meant that she had made it through another halfway point, even as her body sways under her as every nerve ending in her body gets lit on fire. 105, meant that she would do this. She would not fall; she would not fail. </p>
<p>	“120.”</p>
<p>	“Severus,” she choked out. Her words come in broken sounds. No longer would sound actually come from her screams. The first two, the ones that she had to get free were done. Now, she was helping out of the goodness of her heart. She would not fail, but she could fail. That would have to be enough for her sanity because that’s all she’s got. </p>
<p>	Luna held her closer as the pain continues skirting over her body. The shivers, the flinches, and the limbs flailing would not drive her away. “You are Hermione Granger, the real Hercules. The one that will stand before the unjust and force them to change the rules. The one that would see the world being evil and fight back. The smartest witch of our age.”</p>
<p>	Draco crawled forward. He ignored the panicked stammer of Kingsley. He reached over and grabbed Granger’s right hand. He couldn’t sit here and do nothing. </p>
<p>	Luna smiled over at him. Because that wouldn’t help, but it wouldn’t hurt either, and maybe just maybe it would give Hermione some amount of courage that someone else was willing to hold onto her as she withstood torture. </p>
<p>	Again, Luna watched as Hermione opened her mouth to plead, and she shook the woman ever so slightly in her arms. “You cannot. You cannot give in, Hermione. There is no one else. No one else will stand for them. No one else will withstand. You can, so you shall.”</p>
<p>	Blaise wiped furiously at the tears in his eyes as he called out the next set of numbers. Until finally, he was able to shout at the top of his lungs. “180.”</p>
<p>	“Rabastan.” Hermione’s mind still supplied her with the name, when she heard the number. She still had her mind. Even if she couldn’t find her thoughts anymore, she still had them. They were still there. They were still her thoughts even if she couldn’t reach them. </p>
<p>	She started laughing. The pain caught in her stomach as if it could push her into submission, and her laughter got louder. Her lungs were on fire, and her feet no longer held her body, but she didn’t need them. She had herself. “Fuck you, Voldemort,” she screamed. </p>
<p>	Harry spun around to face her.</p>
<p>	“Fuck you, Tom Riddle. You didn’t win. You didn’t get any more victims from beyond the grave. All you’ve got is a broken legacy, and a council of idiots.”</p>
<p>	The pain washed over her body, and she just rolled her head into Luna’s shoulder. She looked Luna in the eyes. “He lost.”</p>
<p>	“Yes, my dearest lion. He lost, and you will make sure that even in his death, he won’t be allowed to win another single moment. You have talked Hades out of fulfilling the promise that was made. You have beat a part of the death process.”</p>
<p>	“210.”</p>
<p>	Hermione laughed again. Only thirty seconds left. She would withstand that without question. These are no longer things that can be questioned. They are just the simple facts of the world. “Luna,” she gasped. “Luna.” Over and over. That would keep her focused. </p>
<p>	“And Draco,” Luna supplied. “He’s holding your hand. I know you can’t feel him, but he’s there. He crawled here to you, so you weren’t alone.”</p>
<p>	“Good boy.”</p>
<p>	Luna couldn’t hide her snicker at the affronted look on Draco’s face. She just couldn’t stop herself. “Yes, he’s a good kid. He shouldn’t have to be tortured.”</p>
<p>	“240,” Blaise called.</p>
<p>	Hermione grinned through the pain. “Lucius.” The magic cut off, and her body collapsed still within the safe confines of Luna’s arms. Her eyes blinked several times as if trying to process the lack of pain once more. “Neither did I, but I do seem to find myself getting tortured quite often.”</p>
<p>	“Occupational hazard of being Hercules,” Luna agreed.</p>
<p>	Severus looked over at his former student and current wife. “Thank you,” he whispered. Words couldn’t explain the debt that he felt to the woman in this moment. </p>
<p>	Hemione snorted as her eyes drifted towards closed. “Don’t. Talk later.” Then, her body slouched. </p>
<p>	Blaise tossed in some floo powder and called for Nott.</p>
<p>	Theodore stepped out of the portal to stare at the mess in front of him. “You let her stand for them,” he yelled.</p>
<p>	“She chose, Theodore,” Luna reminded. “But, she wouldn’t want to sleep on Blaise’s floor after being tortured, and Kingsley hasn’t allowed anyone to bedrooms within Blaise’s mansion.”</p>
<p>	Theo turned his gaze to everyone else remaining in the room. His eyes fall on the three men she now had to call husband with a grimace on his face. “You hurt her, and I will end you. For the sake of Kingsley, I won’t kill you. I will just make you wish for death.”</p>
<p>	Then, he knelt by the ground and picked Hermione up into his arms. Her body limp in his arms, and his eyes blurry with tears, he made his way home. She’d wake up in her bedroom in his house. She would recall warm memories before she recalled the torture, and that would be the extent of what he could do for her at this time. </p>
<p>	Rabastan titled his head towards Blaise once the absence of his wife set in. “Could you tell me about her?”</p>
<p>	“I could, but I won’t. Your information will come for her or be non-existent. I won’t be party to secret exchanges about her.”</p>
<p>	“What about you?”</p>
<p>	Blaise raised an eyebrow. This could be an intriguing line of conversation to go down.</p>
<p>	“If you and Theodore Nott will kill us if we step out of line, surely we should know your side to that?”</p>
<p>	Blaise nodded. That request was quite possibly correct, and plus his words would hit harder right now than later once Hermione woke up. “Theo is my best friend. He is one of the few people that I trust with everything that I am. His father went to Azkaban after the ministry mess, because he got unmasked. Theo was devastated, because his father was evil and also because that man was still his father. Hermione came over to us in the library one day, and she looked at Theo. I was sure I was going to have to start a fight, instead, she whispered she was sorry. We were shocked, so when a couple weeks later she seemed anxious, we left her a note with some chocolates. Then, we started sneaking away once a week to form a study group of three in the room of requirement. We told no one. We mentioned nothing, and when she ran, she left a note. Theo gave her access to his manor if she needed it. And I swore off the war.”</p>
<p>	Severus nodded. “That’s why your potions grade improved drastically.”</p>
<p>	“Yeah. Hermione is a better teacher than you or Theo, sorry, sir.”</p>
<p>	“Don’t be. One more question, if you feel like you can answer. Do you think Hermione will leave us to our fates?”</p>
<p>	“And piss off magic,” Blaise retorted. “No, she married you. She may have done so under some form of duress, but she’ll honor the bond made. Don’t ask me what that’ll look like though. Because I have no idea.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Communication is Important</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Hermione almost blackmails Kingsley into letting her take her husbands out of the holding cells for long enough to talk about what their marriage is going to look like, all while saving the prisoners from fates worse than death.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the morning, Hermione groaned. The bed beneath her was actually proper and not shared between generations. She loves the Weasleys and the Burrow, but she craved a proper bed. She wondered whether Theo knew she was here or whether Blaise had opened the floo for Luna without calling him. </p><p>	A knock on the door told her that he probably knew. “Come in,” she called.</p><p>	Theo pushed the door open and leaned on the frame. “You’re in hot water with me.”</p><p>	“Why?”</p><p>	“You let yourself get tortured for others, again. No war to blame it on this time, and I will drag you into being a healthier person if it kills me, Hermione.”</p><p>	“Don’t worry, Theo. I have three husbands now, surely they’ll be able to keep me out of trouble.”</p><p>	Theo sighed and came inside the room. He laid down on her bed, until he was pressed up against her where she could feel his body. </p><p>	Suddenly, she realized that she had been shaking. The aftermath of extended torture taking a significant toll on her body. She leaned into the simple embrace. “I am sorry that I worried you, you know. But, I couldn’t let them die.”</p><p>	“No, you’re a Gryffindor and a good person.”</p><p>	Hermione squeezed her eyes shut. “I need a private place to talk to them about this marriage. I need that to be figured out before anything else happens. I just need to be on some sort of page, and right now I don’t even know whether they understand that this won’t be a sham of a marriage.”</p><p>	“Blaise would have made sure they didn’t have any allusions,” Theo pointed out. “But, if you need a place to take them, bring them here. They are your family, and I made the wards accept you as family. By magical law, they are welcome here with or without my permission.”</p><p>	“You know I wouldn’t let them, if I didn’t have your permission.”</p><p>	Theo huffed into her hair. “You going to start your first marital argument the day after the ceremony.”</p><p>	“I have a gut feeling most of them are going to feel indebted enough that it will be like pulling teeth to even get them to admit that they want some ground rules within the marriage that aren’t mine.”</p><p>	Theo chuckled before leaning up from the bed. “That means that you won’t take advantage, don’t pretend like I don’t know you almost as well as you know you. We were the ones stuck together when things got rough, not when things were easy to piece together, and we went through it together. So, your husbands are welcome in my house as they would be welcome at yours. Because that’s what decent friends should do, when they’re best friend marries three men to save them from a death most gruesome, and saves the fourth as a bonus.”</p><p>	Hermione chuckled right next to him, because when it was laid out like that all of this seems like something from a bad fairytale that her parents would have read to her as a child. She knew that every action from the night before had been something from a place of desperation to not let Voldemort get another body to get his name in the news. If she never once had to hear the news refer to him again, she’d be a happy woman. </p><p>	Then, she sobered up. She had three husbands, none of whom knew what their lives together would look like. She had three husbands on trial for actions that they took under duress that she was going to have to get them out of serving time for. Serving time in a prison that had been destroyed during the war, along with the only school in the nation for wizards, not to mention a currently under-represented government. </p><p>	Theo nodded. “Remember the chaos that we’ve got to start working on, now.”</p><p>	“I wasn’t supposed to have to deal with this. I killed the dark lord, now let me rest.”</p><p>	“I wish,” he said, “but you have to play your part too, Ms. Granger. Wait, Mrs. Snape. No, Mrs. Malfoy. Hold up, its Mrs. Lestrange. Or, maybe Lady Lestrange. Oh, oh, wait for this one, Lady Prince.”</p><p>	“I hate you so much right now. I guess we probably should discuss names at this family meeting. Will you do me a huge favor?”</p><p>	“And not be in this house for whatever conversations or not conversations that you’re going to have in my house.”</p><p>	“Well, yes. But also, can you go to the wizagemont and convince them that we all need them to prioritize a  proper prison for all of the prisoners, so that we can actually hold trials.”</p><p>	Theo rubbed over his face. “I forgot about that small issue. Yeah, I’ll go try to convince some old coots to actually try helping us instead of having their heads stuck up their asses, but I make no promises on how well that will go in any sense of the word.”</p><p>	Hermione kissed his cheek, before she stepped into the floo and called out the Zabini mansion. Her feet stomped on the rug outside of the fireplace to get some of the soot out of her clothing. She might not care much about her appearance, but she needed to make a decent impression on the several men that she was going to meet, since most of them were already stuck as her husband, and she doesn’t need them hating her anymore than they will once they know that they can’t get out of this sham of a marriage, because magic dared to bless them with all that came with it, when all she wanted was a simple night without nightmares. </p><p>	Kingsley stared at her presence. “Ms. Granger, I wasn’t expecting to see you.”</p><p>	“You weren’t,” she stated as she closed her eyes. God save her from stupid idiots who have yet to figure out that the correct way to address someone in a situation like this wasn’t to use their maiden name, right after she married several people to save him from the damn scandal. Instead of snapping that out, she took a deep, settling breath. She can’t just bully people into her eay right now. “Well, given I’m not sure that’s even the correct title for me to go by anymore, you’ll pardon me for wondering why you didn’t see this coming.”</p><p>	“You can’t just talk to them while they are prisoners.”</p><p>	“You’ll find that I plan to regardless of their prisoner status at the moment. You owe me, Kingsley, and I need to talk to my husbands privately. So, I’m going to apparate us to the Nott Manor. If it will make you feel better, I’ll keep the magical repression chains on.”</p><p>	Kingsley sighed as if she was the one being unreasonable. “Hermione, they are death eaters.”</p><p>	“One of them is a literal child solider. One of them was a spy, without whom we wouldn’t have won this war. And according to all accounts of those people who have no reason to lie, one of them was under mind control. So tell me Kingsley, which one do you reckon belongs in those chains?”</p><p>	“They have to sit a trial. We can’t just be the judge and jury.”</p><p>	“And you won’t find me doubting those facts. But, I need to talk to my husbands all the same, privately, because I had to marry them while they were in captivity in order to save you from the scandal of letting four death eaters, multiple of whom can be argued against, die while in your custody.”</p><p>	“You won’t take no for an answer.”</p><p>	Hermione shook her head. She was going to get what she came for, even if she had to start another war. That’s how done with the wizarding world, she was. She was ready to start a fight, and she wasn’t really thinking straight when it comes to what precisely she wanted when it came to reasonable requests. She was going to take until they started letting her breathe again.</p><p>	Harry stepped out from the hallway. “It would be better, Kinsley, to just let her take them and make her promise to have them back here before the end of the night.”</p><p>	“The end of the night?”</p><p>	“Well, just in case, Hermione wants to have  a wedding night.”</p><p>	“I have a wand, and a hundred different hexes that I know silently,” she threatened.</p><p>	“Already taking lessons from your husband on how to handle a simple joke,” he teased right back. The ease which his back bended, told her that he didn’t think anything of this. He wasn’t taking this seriously. He probably thought that she would be knocking back beers in a couple weeks, talking about the horrid ordeal of being married to the slytherins for the past week. But, that wouldn’t be happening. </p><p>	“Fine,” Kingsley said.</p><p>	Hermione inclined her head and walked straight into the room full of death eaters. She knelt by Draco first and pulled him up onto his feet. He leaned a bit heavy against her, but given the night before, she couldn’t really blame him, and those chains had to be awful to manage to stand in.</p><p>	She leaned him up against the wall as she searched for either of her other two husbands. To her surprise, she found Rabastan first. She knelt down, and he threw his arm around her to allow her an easier access point to pull him to his feet. He swayed dangerously, as he attempted to not rely on her to catch all of his weight, until she started moving. Then, he leaned on her just as fully as Draco did. She was going to design better prison gear once she had enough time to think about the proper designs that wouldn’t require such treatment. More inhumane than muggles, yet somehow have convinced themselves that they have the moral and power high horse. She placed him right next to Draco close enough that if they wanted to hold each other, they’d have more than an ample opportunity to do so.</p><p>	Once more in the room of death eaters, she found Snape. He was barely awake as if he had been tormented further, which wouldn’t surprise her given the other prisoners. She really needed to get them out of these damn accommodations. Thanks, ministry. They always knew what to do, that’s why the dark lord rose more than once. She took him more in her arms than the others. He drooped against her, the strength needed for standing beyond him, and she was close to just blowing the damn room up. But, her eyes saw Lucius in the crowd, and that would hurt Draco. Plus, everyone deserved a trial to determine whether they were worthy of the future that was coming to them. </p><p>	Severus stayed in her arms as she makes her way back over to the others. “Can both of you hook yourselves around my arms if I raise them from Snape for a second?”</p><p>	Both men nodded, although they seemed confused at what was happening. Normally, she’d bother explaining, but if she did, there was a small chance that one of the other prisoners would try to latch onto her to drag themselves away from their sentence. Not to mention, performing any magic surrounded by this many wards against it, pressing into others skin, was a risk, and she was unwilling to do more than necessary to get them out enough for her to be able to speak privately. </p><p>	Her right arm raised first. Severus ended up pressed against her chest, and while under normal circumstances, she’d be stammering out apologies, that would have to wait for a different day. Draco tucked himself into the space made, and Hermione made sure that her magic settled over him as he glided into her. That was the easiest way to slide along multiple people, even though most wizards didn’t try it. This was again the best plan she had, because she sure as hell wasn’t making them go through a floo alone. They’d end up in a heap in the hallway, with tiles. </p><p>	She raised her left arm, next. Rabastan hesitated, almost as if he expected her to be holding some sort of grudge, or pain. They can put that on the docket for a discussion of boundaries in this damn marriage. They’d probably all like a stiff drink after everything, but she would get in trouble for that. Most of her other plans, wouldn’t be detectable, thus allowing her to do as she wanted.</p><p>	Magic settled around all of them, and she whisked them off. She felt the shivers running against her skin as all of them tried to keep whatever food they had down their stomachs. The problem with side-along, but she still believes this was the best option. She had made it to the main living room where they could all be comfortable.</p><p>	“Sorry about the lack of warning, but I didn’t want any other prisoners getting fancy ideas, but I wasn’t about to make you use the floo.”</p><p>	Draco blinked up at her as he stared at all of the belongings. “This isn’t your house.”</p><p>	Hermione scrunched up her face. “I mean that depends on your definition. While, my name isn’t on the lease or the land ownership, the wards are tied to me. And, in wizarding laws, that means if the property was going to default to the government, it would go to me first as I can prove to be able to get in without any assistance from a previous owner.”</p><p>	“This isn’t some place that we are welcome,” Draco corrected softly.</p><p>	“Oh, also incorrect. I got permission for all three of you this morning. This is Nott manor, and since Lord Nott died during the battle of Hogwarts, the ownership went to his only living son, Theo. Theo has always sworn that I will have a place in his home once he had one. Neither of us really expected this, but all the same the world is what it is.”</p><p>	Hermione clapped her hands to draw attention away from that train of thought. “Anyway, you can sit just about anywhere, and if you give me a moment, I’ll make you more comfortable.”</p><p>	Slowly, her husbands found their way to different varying locations. Draco took a seat in an armchair facing away from her, which was telling. She was expecting not to see such blatant displays of trust quite this early. Both, Rabastan and Severus chose to sit in the couch facing her head on. </p><p>	Hermione dug out her wand and cast simple discovery charms on the chains to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything last night. Of course there was nothing. Just basic runes on the chains themselves. If no one tried to exploit that before this journey was over, she’d actually bust a gut laughing. Because the idea that people were able to get by dementors but were stumped by basic runes was just too good to pass up. That was just ridiculous. </p><p>	Hermione leveled her wand at Draco and watched as Severus made to move towards him, before deciding that a verbal spell would decrease tensions more than a silent one. “Alohomora.”</p><p>	The chains slid from Draco’s body onto a pile by the floor. A heap of stupid plans the ministry probably didn’t spend more than a day thinking about. She really did need Theo to go knock some sense into those heads while she was dealing with her marriage problems. </p><p>	Draco gulped in air and he could probably feel magic once more in that breath of air. He didn’t make any other move for a moment, before turning to face her with an awed expression. “Thank you.”</p><p>	“Don’t tell the minister. I’d hate to be locked up beside you, when I’ll need to be coordinating all of the defense arguments. I’ll probably have to get a lawyer.”</p><p>	“Not a word,” Draco swore. </p><p>	Hermione took in the other two, who looked guilty at having thought the worse. Granted, their pasts meant that she wasn’t going to push for immediate trust. She might deserve a bit more, but that didn’t mean anything when it came to situations such as this. “I can remove yours, or I can pass my wand to Draco and let him. Whichever will make you more comfortable.”</p><p>	Severus’s eyes went wide as he took in her relaxed posture. “You’d give him your wand.”</p><p>	“I can disarm him without one, but even if I couldn’t probably. He wouldn’t attack me right after I saved him. The most he would do is point it at me in a threat, and I would let him do whatever it was that he wanted in the moment.”</p><p>	Draco sat there staring for a moment before falling over laughing. “Not like you’d need magic either. I still remember you punching me.”</p><p>	“You deserved it.”</p><p>	“No argument, but I deserved it on several different occasions for much more drastic offences, so the fact that one is the only one that you ever hit me for, is still hilarious in my book.”</p><p>	Hermione shrugged. “I debated shielding you from the whole ferret thing, but decided that it would be payback for the times I didn’t break your nose.”</p><p>	“Fair.”</p><p>	Rabastan glanced in between them for another moment, considering what was happening. “If you wouldn’t mind, Hermione. Am I allowed to call you that?”</p><p>	“I’m your wife. Call me whatever you wish, but if it’s insulting don’t be surprised if I retaliate.” Hermione paused. “Sorry, I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific. If I would mind releasing you of those bonds myself or handing Draco my wand so that he can?”</p><p>	“I trust you,” he said. The movement of his shoulders disproved him almost automatically, but she wasn’t so cruel that she was going to point that out. The war would leave scars on all of them, and if they picked at them every single time something came up, they’d never stop bleeding. </p><p>	Hermione raised her wand again. She gave plenty of time for Snape to interject if he wished to, but he remained silent. His eyes were on hers, and she wondered if he had the chains off whether he could disarm her almost as easily as she could him. That would be interesting to discover. There was a chance she’d convince him to show her some tricks. “Alohomora,” she chanted and the chains slithered off his skin into the pile. Well, another charm silently to get them to move, but she didn’t want to make too much of a mess in Theo’s main seating area. That would be rude of her.</p><p>	Rabastan spread his arms over the couch and groaned. She was pretty sure that was out of happiness. </p><p>	Her eyes met Severus, and she waited.</p><p>	“He won’t tell you anything right now. He doesn’t know which answer would lead to a more desired outcome,” Rabastan warned. “Might as well just free him from the chains.”</p><p>	Severus glared at Rabastan but offered no verbal criticism. </p><p>	Hermione sighed. She didn’t bother saying it aloud, because if he didn’t want to speak that was on him, but she wasn’t going to do something for his benefit, when he wouldn’t even tell her a simple preference. “That’s going to get annoying fast,” she said. Still, the chains flew off and landed in the pile. A bit more dramatic than she had planned, but that’s just the way that it goes with magic sometimes.</p><p>	Severus reached out and tugged on Rabastan, until the man was practically on top of him. Then, he turned back to Hermione. “I apologize. I wouldn’t have trusted either of the options, so silence seemed like the easiest solution.”</p><p>	Hermione shrugged. “Seems to me like you’d trust Rabastan just fine, and he was free. Could have asked me to hand the wand to him.”</p><p>	“What?” Rabastan asked. </p><p>	Severus tilted his head. “Why would you trust him with your wand? All you have is my and Lucius’ word that he isn’t evil to his bones. And that would put you at a disadvantage.”</p><p>	“Uhuh. Sure, I’ve been tortured on the floor of Draco’s ballroom, and I’m still pretty confident that I wouldn’t have fallen. I don’t think recently released from magical bonds with a wand that likes me more was going to win a fight if it came to that.” Hermione paused. “Now, you might actually be able to beat me if I gave you my wand.”</p><p>	Then, she hesitated. She wanted them to be on equal footing and this would ensure it, but still this put her in enough risk that she was smart enough to think through her actions before she just reacted. She tossed her wand over and landed it on Severus’ lap. She raised a single eyebrow. </p><p>	Severus tilted his head to the side as he picked up the wand. “A Gryffindor through and through. I could kill you with the opening that you just provided.”</p><p>	“Yes. Just as I could have allowed you death yesterday.” Hermione moved to the other armchair and sat. She didn’t want to have to spell things out, but this might be hard for them to grasp on such short notice. “You are my husbands. You are mine and I am yours, magic bound us together. If I cannot trust the people that even magic has blessed, then I cannot trust anyone, and I will not live like that now that the bastard of a dark lord is dead.”</p><p>	“Dark lord wasn’t the only problem,” Rabastan said. His tone suggested that everyone in that room should know that truth all to well.</p><p>	“True, but Dumbledore can rot in his grave as well. And the rest of the ministry owes me enough of a debt that I can manipulate the system into something better. It’ll just take time and hopefully, I’ll not have to do that alone.”</p><p>	Severus twirled her wand in his hands for a moment. The act weighed on him after another moment of holding the wand, and he tossed it back to her. “What do you want today, Hermione?”</p><p>	“Not Ms. Granger,” she teased.</p><p>	“Even I am not so dull as to call my wife by her maiden name without at least changing the title to Mrs. I do not in fact have a death wish so soon after getting out of the last one.”</p><p>	“I wish for us to discuss the rules and boundaries of this marriage, so that once I get all of you out of those damn chains for good, we can start on a decent foundation, rather than have to have this conversation after we’ve already needed a foundation to fall upon because you’re all free.”</p><p>	Draco casted his eyes up to hers before dropping his head to his hands. “Alright, let’s start with the simple stuff first. Stuff that we can’t really change, because of laws. You married me, well all three of you married me, but that has a whole lot of implications that I’m not quite ready to handle. As my wife, Hermione, you have access to all of the Malfoy vaults. You would normally have a spending budget allotted to you by me during the engagement period, as we skipped that, you have full access with no ties to limits or anything else. Please do try not to bankrupt us, mother would be distraught. As my husbands, both of you are welcome to tie are family vaults together or leave them separated. The rules on this are vague for a reason, and we could likely convince them to do whatever it was that we wanted in this situation.”</p><p>	Severus nodded. “Indeed. For my matters, things are a bit different. Because I am the only living member of the Prince family, even though disgraced through the actions of my mother, I have more or less complete control on how everything is done. Hermione, you are welcome to take the family name should you wish to. No one would be able to argue your claim on it. You are welcome to the bank accounts too, assuming that they’ll allow you in. I am allowed to request items, and deposit things, but they have not allowed me in at any point during my time in the wizarding world since becoming Lord Prince.”</p><p>	“They are unlikely to allow me to do anything that the law does not require them to do. Since, last time I was there, I tricked their system into believing that I was someone that I was not, stole multiple priceless artifacts from a vault that was not my own, and then broke out on the back of a dragon,” Hermione drawled. </p><p>	Draco snorted. “Oh my god, that was real.”</p><p>	“I needed the sword that Bellatrix had in the Black vault, and I got what I needed. Now, it might have been in an interesting fashion that I managed this, but all the same I got what I needed, and I survived the war.”</p><p>	Rabastan pursed his lips. “Okay, that brings up a legal matter on Draco’s end that I doubt he’s even aware of.”</p><p>	“What?” Draco’s eyes pinched as he ran through his head all of the things he had mentioned. He didn’t know of anything that he missed.</p><p>	“The Blacks have no living male heirs to inherit after Sirius was cut off and Regulus passed on into the next life. Which meant that it reverted to the oldest female heir, my sister-in-law, Bellatrix, which is how she was able to use the Black vault with no other takers. Her husband would have had access and her children, but one of those is dead and the other never existed in the first place. That would mean that the Black fortune would fall to Narcissa and her children. Or in this case, you, Draco as the son. You would then officially become the Black heir by legal definition, making Hermione the Lady Black. Thus, that vault is yours now, so the goblins might actually see what you did as devious and ingenious now.” </p><p>	“Okay, I’ll be sure to float that particular line of thought next time I go to Gringotts. Since, I plan on being involved in your release, I will likely need to go to the banks to get quite a few things to be taken seriously.”</p><p>	Rabastan nodded. That would likely be her best option. “Now, on my end, you will of course have access to most of the Lestange properties and bank accounts, both those here in Britain and those that are in the continent. I have some accounts in other nations from before Voldemort’s claim to fame, before the mind control. I put in a clause that if I ever married that the woman would have complete control over finances and properties, as would be family custom from older times. No one liked it, but no one could ever rewrite that clause. Hence, why Voldemort never married me off.”</p><p>	Hermione closed her eyes. Her body flinched each time that name sunk into her skin. It felt harder than any curse. Dumbledore had once said that fear of a name often became fear of the thing itself, but she has some significant issues with that line of thought. In particular the insanity of trying to make sense of that given that Dumbledore knew his real name. “His name was Tom Riddle. Voldemort was just some cringy, edgy nickname he gave himself to make others fear him. No need to use it. It has no power with him dead, and it doesn’t deserve to belong in the history books except as a footnote.”</p><p>	Severus jerked his head up and met her eyes. “How much did the three of you learn before the Battle of Hogwarts?”</p><p>	“Just about everything. I can tell you that the dark lord probably never would have risen if not for Dumbledore being unable to tutor a child he thought he saw darkness within. I can tell you that Tom Riddle had a horrid life, and so did you. I can tell you about Death’s bloody curse, and how that was half of the issue as well. I can tell you it started with Grindelwald, and ended with Tom Riddle, or I can be even more truthful and tell you that it won’t be over until the day death takes us all. I can tell you that if given half the chance, I would have probably stood up for the boy that Tom Riddle was. And how I would have punched James Potter if he had been in front of me all those years ago. I can tell you that I am part of the light, but that the dark calls more often than not. We had to be soldiers, and we were children, and they had me. I learned everything about everyone. I would not have survived otherwise.”</p><p>	“Why?” Rabastan asked as his eyes filled with tears.</p><p>	“Because otherwise, I was just another regular solider, expendable.” Hermione gulped. “We all have scars from the war. And, I’d prefer if we didn’t end up at each other’s throats every other day because of actions taken by others that just happen to have our name on them.”</p><p>	Severus nodded. “I wouldn’t have accepted your help.”</p><p>	“You wouldn’t have had a choice. Anymore than you had a choice when I stole the ingredients for Polyjuice out of your store room without you noticing, and brewing the damn thing perfectly in a broken bathroom with a ghost hanging out around my shoulder. And that’s one of my lower crimes taken for the good of others,” Hermione retorted. </p><p>	“That was you.”</p><p>	Hermione debated the pros and cons of admitting to a potentially illegal act before realizing that no one was actually going to be willing to arrest her for at least another five years. “Yes.”</p><p>	Severus nodded. “I was pretty sure you had convinced a higher year to help you, or that Dumbledore handed them to you.”</p><p>	“That would be the easy way out,” she replied. Then, she turned to the list in her mind of things that they needed to get ironed out pretty quickly. “I am curious what you would prefer for last names. Are we all wanting the same last name? Do we use whichever last name will give us the most benefits at the time? Do we all keep our previous names?”</p><p>	Draco shrugged. “If we’re going by technicalities, the name should be for all of us, and should use at least all three of the noble names, and given the importance of your name now, that should be on it to. That would make us all the Granger-Lestrange-Malfoy-Snapes.”</p><p>	“Yes, Mrs. Granger-Lestrange-Malfoy-Snape is fantastic for people who try to challenge me.”</p><p>	“What if we changed the order for each of us, but kept the general hyphenated form for all of us. Hermione Granger-Lestrange-Malfoy-Snape. Draco Malfoy-Snape-Granger-Lestrange. Severus Snape-Granger-Lestrange-Malfoy. And Rabastan Lestrange-Malfoy-Snape-Granger,” Rabastan suggested softly.</p><p>	Hermione grinned. “I love it. It will confuse the shit out of anyone who chose to make enemies of us, and for our friends nothing changes.”</p><p>	“What friends?” Draco hissed.</p><p>	Rabastan sighed. “I’m pretty sure that all of my friends know me as a psychopath with no redeemable qualities.”</p><p>	“I have people who might associate with me willingly,” Severus added.</p><p>	Hermione cursed under her breath. She did not need the self-flagellation although she doesn’t blame them. “You can borrow mine if you want some. God knows that Theo will want to test all of you on your worthiness, you might as well test him right back, and for him that’s close to friendship. Blaise won’t like it, but he’ll answer the door or the floo whenever you come by. Luna probably already considers you friends because of some fantasy creature she sees in her head that told her about our perfect match. Harry should probably not be on your list, because if you don’t kill him, he will kill you. Ron isn’t really my friend anymore. And, Severus, you have friends. Minerva has been fighting for you every single day since the battle with anyone who will listen. Flitwick doesn’t speak as much, but he’s more than happy to speak up should you ever ask him to. Rabastan, you still have Kingsley, who may or may not be blaming himself for not realizing that you were under mind control that whole time. Draco, I will fight you. You have Parkinson, who while I dislike on a fundamental level, still has your back.”</p><p>	“She wanted to marry me, Granger. She won’t still be my friend, because I can’t give her what she wanted.”</p><p>	Hermione controlled her anger and stood up to the floo. “Parkinson,” she called after throwing powder in. </p><p>	“What do you want, Granger?” she yelled. “I’m a bit busy trying to explain that I never attacked anyone so I can’t be arrested.”</p><p>	“Tell them to back off from both Hermione Granger and Harry Potter before one of them actually has to show up to knock some sense into people. Also, would you still count Draco as a friend if he got married?”</p><p>	Pansy huffed through the fireplace. “Of course he did. Could be the Dark Lords influence or some other bullshit, because we all know that he wasn’t the only one manipulating everyone around them. But, yes, I’ll still be his friend. Does he need one at his trial? Do you have a date?”</p><p>	“He’ll need a friend that day, and no. But, as his wife, I’ll probably have to start working that out soon.”</p><p>	“Shit, better start calling you Malfoy now, then.”</p><p>	“Only if you also want to add Snape and Lestrange to my list of names.”</p><p>	“Are you okay?”</p><p>	“When has that ever been an option? When were we given the chance to be normal and healthy children? I was under the impression that they would have rather had us dead than normal.”</p><p>	Parkinson paused. “I have extra anxiety lowering potions, if you need them.”</p><p>	“I’ve got my own stash, and I brewed yours.”</p><p>	“You just married three men, you might need to take a break from brewing and everything else that you’re currently working on to handle the marriage. And, I’ll help cover for you when you need it.”</p><p>	“Because you love me,” she teased meeting Draco’s eyes as he stared at her in shock.</p><p>	“Because you’re not a complete asshole, and you did save me and most of the entire society, so I’ll make an exception to being a bitch for you.”</p><p>	Hermione cancelled the call and sat back on her heels to grin at her husbands. “You should know that I probably have enough ties to be aristocrat now.”</p><p>	Severus ran a hand down his face. “What else should we talk about?”</p><p>	“First of all, do you need me to stage an actual breakout?” Hermione knew that the answer would likely be no, that they wanted the formal trial to deem the not guilty, however if that was no longer true, she would kick down doors and storm castles.</p><p>	“I’m sorry are you offering to become a fugitive on the run?” Rabastan asked. His face pinched up as though the thought offended him.</p><p>	“Kind of. I mean this wouldn’t be the first law I broke. Harry probably wouldn’t even count it as one of my top five crimes of the year. And, if I could keep two teenage boys on the run from a dark lord hell bent on finding us and killing us, with the government on his side at the time. I can keep us on the run from a shambled government that hasn’t quite decided what it’s going to be at the end of all of this.”</p><p>	Severus shook his head. “We can’t save this world from the next dark lord if half of the people still think we were loyal to the old one, which is what they’ll assume if we break out.”</p><p>	“We could save the world by being the next dark lords,” Draco muttered. </p><p>	“True,” Hermione stated, “but that would mean that we’d have to try to build up a following which is hard when all of the initial members are family. So, I’d leave that for a different day, preferably after we’ve gotten all of you pardoned, and that you’ll be free to do as you wish.”</p><p>	Severus jerked his head up. “I should have kept your wand just to look into your mind so that I could tell what the hell you want.”</p><p>	Hermione chuckled. Her shields were much better than Harry’s because while Bellatrix wasn’t great at mental magic, others present were and if her thoughts were available, then she’d have been dead and secrets spilled. Again, the master might get the best of her, but that would be a fun show. So, once more she tossed her wand over to him. “All you have to do, dear husband, is ask.”</p><p>	Severus caught her wand before dropping his jaw. “Do you have a death wish?”</p><p>	“No more than you did. I have just accepted that death will one day come for me, and that I will not fight it. If you are the one to bring me to death’s door, so be it. If you wish to read my mind, feel free to try.”</p><p>	He leveled the wand at her, and she surprised even herself when she didn’t tense or flinch. Huh, the trust that she chose to give them must extend further than what she figured. “Legilimens.”</p><p>	She could feel him there, with her inside her head. The list for the day was laid out in front of them and everything else sat behind closed doors. She could feel her slight distaste rise in response to the foreign being standing next to her in her mind, but she sets it aside in front of him. </p><p>	Severus dropped the wand. “You are more than a schoolgirl.”</p><p>	“Didn’t realize that as I withstood torture for your life?”</p><p>	“Didn’t realize that you were anything more than a noble girl who didn’t want us to die. But, you could earn a mastery in potions if what Pansy said was true. You definitely have the occumlency for a defense mastery. And given the chains I’d put money on you being able to get a Runes one as well.”</p><p>	“I could sit the one for transfiguration as well, and quite possibly arithmancy.” She reached out and plucked her wand out of his hands. “Did you find what you wanted? I was trying to make that at least easy for you.”</p><p>	Severus nodded. “You’re right. We should probably talk about what we want this marriage to be, and what steps would need to be taken to ensure that none of us get hurt once we’re not in chains, but Hermione, none of us know how to start that conversation.”</p><p>	Hermione ran her fingers across her wand, allowing for the simple magic to relax her body. “Well, I might as well start then. I would have no issues if none of you wanted a romantic relationship with me, but I should warn you that I take oaths seriously. I won’t stray outside these marriage bonds, and I would prefer if you would not do so either. Similarly, I have no issues, if you wish to have romantic encounters with each other. Things would be easier on a societal level if we lived together, so again my preference is for us to do that, but if that is a deal breaker for your comfort, feel free to tell me so, and I will live with the alternatives. I’ve been tortured on several different occasions, so you shouldn’t be surprised if one day I wake up screaming at the top of my lungs. I do cast spells to try to limit the annoyance of such nightmares, however there are days when I break through my own magic in my terror, so there’s that. I have scars on my body that will never be healed, and I have insecurities about them. I am aware that two of you like tossing insults around when you’re upset. I have no issues if you choose to insult me, but I would prefer if the scars never made it into your list of things to hurt me with.”</p><p>	Rabastan held tight to Severus to keep him from jumping to his feet and wasting precious energy that she had given them without asking for anything in return. That was beyond kind, and none of them really need to be antagonizing the woman who was trying to help them, no matter how insane the situation was. “I have no issues with not pursuing romantic situations outside of this marriage. In fact, I would like to try to build relationships with everyone, but that will require time and will occur hopefully after I’m no longer actively a prisoner.”</p><p>	Severus bit down on the inside of his mouth to stop whatever words were trying to make their way out, so that he didn’t snap needlessly. “The same from me, although Rabastan chose not to mention that the two of us, have some amount of history.”</p><p>	“I wasn’t aware that we were even acknowledging that as something that happened,” Rabastan scoffed.</p><p>	Draco glanced in between everyone before sinking into his chair. The nerves are clear in the way that his leg bounces ever so slightly. “I haven’t actually done much in the way of romantic endeavors. My parents approved of Pansy, so she was supposed to be on my arm, but by sixth year, Tom was in charge, and he didn’t want me to focus on anything but my task. I’m fine with not doing anything outside of the marriage that sounds fair. But, I don’t know about relationships. I don’t know the first thing about being in a relationship, and half of this marriage happen to be people with decades of practice.”</p><p>	Hermione reached out and grabbed his hand. She squeezed it between hers. “There’s no rule that we can’t go slow. There’s actually no rules at all, since we’re kind of doing the first polyamorous magical bound marriage since before the 1500s. So, I think it might be safe to say that we can make our own judgements.”</p><p>	“And regardless of what Severus may lead you to believe, we haven’t had much practice either. What with the whole mind control and super spy thing going on. It’s just that when it was just the two of us in a room, I could slip the control just a little more, and Severus relaxed just a fraction more.”</p><p>	“Could have been love,” Severus muttered. </p><p>	“Could have been, but we had to be soldiers first. We had to survive. And now we’re married to two other people, and neither of us know how to do relationships either. We’ll have to make it up as we go.”</p><p>	Severus huffed, but he nodded at that. “He’s right. We don’t know anything about doing this either. But, if you’re willing to try, I’d like to.”</p><p>	Draco took a deep breath, and his grip tightened in Hermione’s ever so slightly as he nodded. He didn’t want to be involved in these conversations, but his luck had run out long before this moment, if things were to be taken at face value.</p><p>	Rabastan waited to see whether anyone else was going to start on the next segment of Hermione’s wishes, and when no one spoke, he shook his head. “Living together does seem like it would be better for once we can have a house instead of a cell. I’d prefer if all of us had our own bedrooms that way we all have a place we can retreat to that is ours.”</p><p>	Hermione grinned at him. “That seems beyond fair, and all of the houses that I know of that we can use would have plenty for that. While we’re talking about rooms, do we also want one that’s for all of us that any of us can use at any point without judgement if we don’t want to be alone and one of the others is willing to join, or do we want to just bring people into our rooms?”</p><p>	Severus looked at her with an inquisitive stare. “We could have a room that’s meant for all of us, no problem. But, who would you expect to use that room?”</p><p>	Hermione shrugged. “If I woke up with nightmares in my room alone more than twice in a night, I’d probably drag myself there, where I’d feel a little less alone in the world.” </p><p>	“I’d go whenever I felt too confined in a single room, since I’m used to others from Hogwarts still,” Draco whispered. </p><p>	Rabastan tilted his head to the side. “Well, then the bedroom for all of us seems like a great plan. Five bedrooms for us. Hermione, you mentioned houses.”</p><p>	“Well obviously we could stay on any of the estates that you guys directly own, but I figure that’s going to be a bit hellish on our nerves, since Draco’s father lives in his place, and I was tortured there. Rabastan was constantly abused in his house. And, as far as, I’m aware Severus, you haven’t ever been to your house given its state of disarray.”</p><p>	“Where does that leave?” Severus asked. Because he swore if she said something about going to Grindwald place or god forbid the other black properties, he might actually try to hex her, manners be damned. </p><p>	“A couple of options. Until we decide permanently anyway since none of these other properties are ours. We could of course use Grindwald place, because Harry would let us, but I know it holds bad memories Severus, so I wouldn’t suggest it at the top of the list. We could use my parent’s house in the muggle world for a short time. It doesn’t have the number of bedrooms that we want, but it has three decent ones and a couch. That would get us through a bit of time.”</p><p>	Draco cleared his throat to interrupt. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure I feel comfortable living with your parents when I know nothing about muggles, and also don’t have enough courage to try to explain the whole marriage situation to them.”</p><p>	“You wouldn’t be living with them,” she answered shortly.</p><p>	“Why not?” Severus asked.</p><p>	“Because they don’t live there anymore.”</p><p>	“Why?” Rabastan this time asked. </p><p>	Hermione threw her hands in the air and pushed herself to her feet. She started pacing around the room, so that her pure rage didn’t bubble over into unused magic, that’d be bad. “Because I was part of the golden trio. Because if Tom Riddle was going to attack someone they were the easiest target to acquire, so I took them away.”</p><p>	Severus raised an eyebrow. “He could have found them if they moved addresses, no matter how smart you think you are.”</p><p>	“Yeah, he would have. Which is why by most technicalities, my parents are dead. They died on Christmas break are Fifth year. They died when I erased every memory they ever had of me, most of their memories involving their childhood, every single living family member, and gave them new ones. I made them fall in love in college rather than meeting while opening up a dentistry office together. Their lifelong dream to move to Australia was now in their reach. They had saved the money from various firms rather than making their own, so they could leave. No daughter to mess with their plans. So, they left the morning after with new names, a fake life, and hopefully a delightful future. So, no, Tom Riddle couldn’t find my parents. Because my parents don’t exist. I saved them, the only way that I could find, because the war had nothing to do with them, and they couldn’t fight it.”</p><p>	Draco covered his face as he tried to hold back the sobs wanting to follow that declaration.</p><p>	Rabastan reached for her, but she kept herself far enough away that he couldn’t easily just latch onto her. She didn’t want his bloody pity. They were at war and some choices had to be made, no matter what the personal cost would be at the end of the day. </p><p>	Severus met her eyes, and his eyes portrayed nothing close to sympathy. In fact, they were just as cold as hers were the day that she made sure that her parents were safe. They were the same level of anger that she had felt within herself a million times over. “You did good. You did what had to be done to make sure they had a happy life.”	</p><p>	“Yeah, I did.” Hermione dropped onto the couch closer to Severus and Rabastan than she would have dared at the start of this, but they were there, and she was going to lose her cool by the end of this meeting. “So, yeah, my parents house. We could also use the Potter manor. Harry would loan me the right of wards for a certain period of time, if I asked. That would give us all of the room and space that we’d want while trying to come up with our more permanent plans after we’ve had some time together. Plus, I could start my potentially lifetime long agreement to help him figure out which artifacts in his collection are worth something and which books I want. Since, the boy has no clue how to do any of that, and he has one of the largest collections.”</p><p>	“Incorrect,” Severus drawled. “That would belong to you. As you now have access to Black heirlooms, Prince heirlooms, Snape heirlooms which may or may not be gifts from Tom, so be careful, Lestrange heirlooms, and quite possibly most of the Malfoy heirlooms, although whether Narcissa and Lucius would actually let you catalog their stuff is another question.”</p><p>	“Some items might be dark,” Draco warned.</p><p>	Hermione snorted. “I probably shouldn’t report those to the ministry then. But, anyone with half a brain should know that some of the things labeled dark were done so that the government would hold power over the people. I have no issue with owning dark materials. I just should be smart enough to have plausible deniability when the government asks. Along with the intelligence to keep the items even after they bring it up.”</p><p>	Severus quirked his lips up. “If we hadn’t grown up during a war, and I had met you in a bar or maybe even a social gathering, and you said something like that, I would have asked you to marry me on the spot as a flirtatious support of that statement.”</p><p>	Hermione offered him a smaller smile. “Well, then, that gives hope for our potential future for this marriage. If you would have flirted with a stranger version of me in a world that doesn’t exist.”</p><p>	“That world sounds nice,” Rabastan said.</p><p>	“No kidding.”</p><p>	Draco shook his head. “I think that Potter manor would be better. No offense Hermione, but outside of you and Severus, we don’t have much muggle skills and throwing us straight into the situation after being released from a magical prison, likely isn’t the way that you want to go.”</p><p>	“Got it. I’ll start working on Harry after I drop you back off. Right after I go grab my stuff from the Burrow before Ron decides that in his infinite wisdom, he should destroy it since I married people who weren’t him days after our breakup.”</p><p>	“To be fair, that was quite a shock,” Rabastan offered.</p><p>	“No.” Draco shot up from his seat to make his way over to the couch. “You cannot defend the youngest Weasley boy. You just cannot. He’s dumb, poor, and he’s not even brave.”</p><p>	“He was brave enough in the end,” Hermione said.</p><p>	“Did he hurt you?” Draco asked.</p><p>	“Yes.”</p><p>	“And apparently, he hurt our wife. So, no we aren’t going to offer any defenses for his bullshit.”</p><p>	“He’s just a child,” Hermione offered.</p><p>	“So were we, but we managed to never sink to Ronald Weasley’s level of bullshit.”</p><p>	Severus chuckled as he watched the two go back and forth on that topic of all things.</p><p>	Hermione shot a glare at Severus as she felt him start silently laughing, but the faint blush on her cheeks told a different story, because she did like the fact that they can tease, and talk, and be almost normal was a great point to being able to survive what they’ve now been thrown into. </p><p>	Severus backed off on his laughter in the face of the glare out of politeness, because a blushing girl was not going to terrify him into compliance, even if she was the one with the wand. “As for your nightmares, I could help with Dreamless Sleep, although I’m sure that you could brew it.”</p><p>	“Can’t. Too addictive. I’ve already taken way too much when wearing the piece of Tom’s soul for a while just to be able to shut him up. You’ll need a better plan, a much better plan.”</p><p>	Rabastan swatted Severus on the shoulder. “Here’s your test subject, since you can’t accurately report the side effects of your own potion by mastery standards.”</p><p>	Hermione raised a brow.</p><p>	“I’ve been attempting a new potion that doesn’t get rid of dreams, but only allows those that produce endorphins.”</p><p>	“Could work, and I’d be more than happy to try your work if you would like me to.”</p><p>	Severus nodded. “I can’t believe you’ve been suffering for that amount of time, and you haven’t started to make a plan yourself to help yourself.”</p><p>	“I have,” Hermione sighed, “however, it turns out that trying to do anything while suffering from nightmares, is extremely difficult.”</p><p>	Severus inclined his head. “And, I only ever targeted you or the others with insults, because I had to maintain the appearance of hating all Gryffindors. I won’t insult you now. That I can swear easily.”</p><p>	Hermione met his eyes. “You should probably tell Neville that too. You had him terrified of you.”</p><p>	“He knows. I tried to make sure that his little rebellions didn’t end with his dead body, and he found out that I was still a spy. He kept my secret. He’s a good man.”</p><p>	“That he is,” Hermione replied. </p><p>	Draco lifted his head, so he could meet the other eyes as well. “I’ve made mistakes, but I’d like to be a better person. I’d prefer not to insult those undeserving anymore.”</p><p>	“Who counts as deserving?”</p><p>	“Well for starters, Ron Weasley.”</p><p>	Chuckles take the entire room as they all grin at each other at those words. </p><p>	“And, then we’ve got to come up with some insults for Tom Riddle, so he knows that he doesn’t have our respect from the grave. Dumbledore too for that matter,” he continued.</p><p>	Hermione laughed. “Tell you what. You give me a reason, and I’ll help you insult those people, and the rest we’ll avoid insulting.”</p><p>	Draco gave her a half bow from where he was still sitting. “And if I may, I still have issues with the whole my parents were used as prisoners for my good behavior, so if you all would be alright with me checking in from the floor quite often, I would appreciate it.”</p><p>	“I mean its no problem. But, patronuses work much better.”</p><p>	“Death eaters can’t make patronuses.”</p><p>	“You aren’t a death eater,” Hermione retorted. “You are a child solider, and you will have happy memories to make a patronus, even if I have to make them.”</p><p>	“Magically or naturally,” Severus asked.</p><p>	“I did not tell you that story for you to judge me.”</p><p>	“Still a valid question, since you can apparently do both,” Rabastan interjected.</p><p>	“Naturally.”</p><p>	Severus bit his lip to stop more laughter from bubbling over. They were trying to be a bit more comfortable with each other given the situation, but this was still unreal, and they did have to get back to their not prison at some point. “Anyway, Draco use the floo until Hermione has enough time to teach you a patronus.”</p><p>	Hermione nodded. “Anything you two need, before we should probably get you back to Kinsley’s custody, so he doesn’t attempt to storm Theo’s place to retrieve you, because you’ve clearly misled me into falling for the dark side.”</p><p>	Rabastan smiled. “I don’t know where I’ll have issues quite yet. I haven’t had a free moment since I was 17, so I might need some time.”</p><p>	“I might need privacy most days,” Severus mentioned. “I’ve been a spy for too long to remember that I’m allowed to show anything in a public location still.”</p><p>	Hermione nodded. “Makes perfect sense. I’ll be sure that there is a potion’s lab set up in the Potter manor for you, fully stocked. Do I need to get something for you Draco or you Rabastan?”</p><p>	“A bed,” Rabastan teased.</p><p>	“Duh.”</p><p>	Draco paused. “Could you get the Hogwarts text books? I want to be able to do the year over and complete my graduate studies.”</p><p>	Hermione tapped the bag sitting at the edge of the couch. “All textbooks we’ve ever needed for daily assignments is in there. Along with quite a few other supplies.”</p><p>	Severus paused. “The future can be worried about on a different day, right?”</p><p>	“Yes. I’ll make sure that nothing horrible happens in between now and then, so that we can’t get sucked into another war.”</p><p>	“Make sure to warn all future dark lords, that we’re too tired to deal with their whole anarchy plan, we’ll just shoot first,” Draco said. </p><p>	Hermione grinned at them. Then, all of their eyes go back to the chains. And all of them fall silent. </p><p>	Hermione shook her head. “All of you are going to be model prisoners, and never give Kingsley a reason to actually search you, got it?”</p><p>	Draco nodded before realizing the disbelief in Severus and Rabastan and pausing. “Why?”</p><p>	Hermione waved her hands and the chains flew up to eye level as she stared at the runes. She flicked her wand and a bar of old chalk soars from a different room. She flips all the chains over and she writes over the runes with a simple line. Then, another flick of the wand to make the chalk permanent. </p><p>	“Still binds your magic, but it doesn’t drain it like the old ones did. Inhumane bastards.”</p><p>	Severus stared at her before laughing. “You do realize that is illegal.”</p><p>	“I’m pretty sure holding children in chains, without trial for extended periods of time is illegal too. We’re just breaking all the laws today. Who would have thought?”</p><p>	Severus shook his head. “You did. You had this planned since the moment you dragged us here.”</p><p>	“Uhuh, and I totally don’t have a plan to fix the other chains while I’m dropping you three back off either.”</p><p>	Rabastan blinked once, then twice. “How many laws have you broken?”</p><p>	“Today, year, or lifetime?”</p><p>	“Yes.”</p><p>	“Today has been a tame day, all I’m doing is bringing human rights to the wizards currently under arrest for being on the wrong side of that battle, before the courts judge them guilty or not. This year, let’s see I’ve robbed someone, I’ve been on the run from the law enforcement, I broke out of a building on a dragon, I killed some people, and I’m pretty sure that torture spells even if not unforgivable are still mostly illegal, so there’s that too. In my lifetime, add in some encouragement of riots, conspiracy to maim someone, blackmail, assault, and creation of a dark hex.”</p><p>	Draco buried his head. “Brightest witch of our age.”</p><p>	“Would have been a slytherin if it wasn’t for that damn savior complex of mine and if my blood wasn’t so muggle.”</p><p>	“No kidding,” Rabastan muttered, “I know slytherins with less of a rap sheet.”</p><p>	Hermione spent some time helping make sure that the chains get on all of them with barely any changes from the original setup. Then, she apparated them straight into the Zabini manor with Blaise clapping for her.</p><p>	Kingsley looked up and met her eyes. “You can’t do this again.”</p><p>	“I don’t plan to. I plan on having all of them holding trials in the next few weeks and getting them out of chains, “she retorted. Then, she leaned down to Blaise to whisper in his ear. “Did you already get the rest?”</p><p>	“Yes. No one is completely cut off from all sources of magic anymore. Kingsley has noticed the difference, but he hasn’t figured out what changed.”</p><p>	Hermione waved politely as she walked out. She had saved all the prisoners, and she had a decent plan for her marriage. <br/> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Time to Build a Prison</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Hermione makes sure that the government has a prison, so that she can go to trial for her husbands. She doesn't really take any calls for hesitating during that period either.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hermione spent the next several weeks ironing out several issues within the current world. She had started out by getting informed by Theo that the trials would be denied until they had an actual jail for these people, so she had to start working on that plan. Most of the volunteers had went straight to Hogwarts, ignoring the rest of the damage done by the death eaters while they were all fighting that war. </p><p>	She managed to put together a few people. Luna was more than happy to help her out, and Harry would stop by when he wasn’t attempting to fight the good fight at every ministry employee who was being allowed back into service after staying during the whole Tom Riddle was in charge part of the war. Plus, she had also gotten Harry to give her access to the Potter Manor so that her husbands and herself would have a place once she had finished whipping everything into shape. </p><p>	The prison itself wasn’t destroyed completely, so rebuilding was simple enough. No, it was the making sure that none of the prisoners were treated inhumanely, while still being cut off from the ability to do magic and escape that was causing all of the problems. </p><p>	Luna swung her legs over the bench to perch right next to Hermione. “We could do something different,” she said. </p><p>	“What?”</p><p>	“Instead of cutting them off from magic, we cut them off from most magic and leave them some. We work on reintegration rather than just sitting in some cell for the end of their days. Because if I’m being honest, I hate the people that are going to be tried first, but I don’t want them to suffer for several hundred years until the shrivel and die alone, frightened, without all of their being.”</p><p>	“We’d have to convince the government to allow us to do this new prison system, Luna. And, I don’t think they’re going to be on board. They want people to crucify.”</p><p>	“Then, we’d better convince them, or we stop listening to what they say all together.”</p><p>	“Who’d be the warden? Who’d be in charge of when they had learned the lessons in correct time? Who would give them more access to magic? How would we regulate the magic?”</p><p>	Luna gazed over at the walls. “When we were younger, and I thought that the worst the world had to offer was bullies who hid my shoes in random places around the castle, I wanted to be a reporter.”</p><p>	“You could still be one.”</p><p>	“No, I couldn’t. I don’t think I’d ever be able to bring myself to talk about the nice things anymore, because I’d be too scared that one day that I didn’t report on the evil gatherings, they’d gain traction and I’d end up in another basement because of my father. That path ended with the war.”</p><p>	Hermione sighed. Luna wasn’t the first person to tell her that the paths that they once wanted more than anything were no longer possible. The war was hard on more than just her group of friends. The war tore everyone up and spit them out. “So, what do you want to do?”</p><p>	“I want to battle evil every day. I want to give the world a reason to believe that we are worth more than what the death eaters saw in us, without telling them that the death eaters are worth nothing. So, if you’re willing to help me design it, I’ll be the warden,” Luna whispered. </p><p>	“That’s something that will be with you always.”</p><p>	Luna nodded. “Will you help me?”</p><p>	Hermione stared at the prison walls that they still hadn’t started working on. They still hadn’t touched the warding. They hadn’t started the work to make sure that no one could ever break out again. Then, she tilted her head to the side. “Okay. I have ideas on how to make this work. But, we need Theo and probably Blaise.”</p><p>	Luna waved her wand with a smile. “Expecto patronum.” Her little rabbit fluttered in front of them, and she sent it off to get both boys while leaning back. </p><p>	“Still the rabbit,” Hermione mused.</p><p>	“Isn’t yours still the otter?”</p><p>	Hermione shook her head. “It was at the end of the battle, it wasn’t after the night of my marriage.” She dug her wand out of her pocket and she held it in front of her. She focused on the happiness she felt when the four of them were on the couch teasing each other on nothing and everything even when they knew that they’d have to go back to the real world in just a couple moments. She held all of the future happiness she was counting on, and she chanted, “expecto patronum.”</p><p>	Out of her wand the strands of blue mystical magic flew. They threw themselves at each other in a blank mist as the creature tried to gather into its new form. The body of the deer formed first. The blue waves forming in such a way that it reminded them both of the traditional body that both Lily and James Potter had once had. Then, the fur doesn’t stay. The feathers formed all around the body settling over where the fur would be on a regular deer except for the head. Then, the little puffs of clouds formed at its mouth.</p><p>	Luna gasped. “A featherfaun! Hermione, these creatures haven’t been seen since they were first documented, let alone attached enough to a soul to create a patronus.”</p><p>	“They haven’t been documented since their founding excerpt, because they don’t go to humans. They’re not needed here in our society. They have their own, but they come sometimes. I saw one as a child.”	</p><p>	“You did?”</p><p>	“I was scared, and my parents weren’t around. My magic was acting up although I didn’t know it at the time, and I was trying to keep two people from injury in a park. The special deer, as I called it then, stepped out from behind a tree in the forested area of the park and held my gaze until help arrived. I’m still pretty sure that the featherfaun allowed me the ability to channel my magic enough to keep those people calm during those times.”</p><p>	Blaise stepped around the corner and froze. “Does anyone want to tell me what that is?”</p><p>	“My patronus.”</p><p>	“I could have sworn that your patronus was an otter. It was documented on several news sources, and I’ve gotten calls from you before.”</p><p>	“You haven’t since I was married, and that’s when it changed,” Hermione replied. Cancelling the spell and allowing her happy memory to fade back into her memory rather than standing in front of her in the form that it was.</p><p>	“Your happy memory changed,” Luna summarized.</p><p>	“Yes, or I should say my hope for happiness changed, which is always what I’ve used to call forth my patronus.”</p><p>	Theo arrived and stared at the three of them. Then, he shook his head. “I don’t want to think about why you don’t use a present happiness to summon it.”</p><p>	Hermione nodded. She wouldn’t want to think about it either, no matter how close she was to the situation, because this was her life. If she could push it back, she would. Because she didn’t want to be the broken child solider, who survived the war, but couldn’t live afterwards, because war was all she knew. </p><p>	“So, why are we here? And please tell me it’s not to commit any crimes, because Kingsley has been eyeing me a lot lately, thinking that perhaps I’m being so helpful to hide my own crimes that will become clear at the trials,” Blaise interjected. </p><p>	Luna cracked a small smile at him. “We’re going to reform the prison system, and I’m going to be the new warden to make sure that people get help so they don’t commit their crimes again, rather than punishing them indefinitely.”</p><p>	Theo scoffed. “So, nothing difficult or anything.”</p><p>	Hermione turned to toss him a glare. “Tell me honestly, have we ever done anything that didn’t require a lot of effort and more than a lot of difficulty? Have we ever even bothered to do things that couldn’t possibly get us arrested?”</p><p>	“Never,” Blaise confirmed. He turned to the prison. “We want to allow them rehabilitation, which means we don’t want them to be suffering needlessly in their cells. That will require that we make sure no dementors, which shouldn’t be hard since the not so immortal dark lord chose to release them. That also means that we don’t want them cut off from magic in its entirety, just the bits that can allow them to use spells, because I can tell you from my brief stint as a warden, that will destroy them, slowly.”</p><p>	“No dementors, in fact Luna, if the government or concerned citizens attempt to bring them here. Cast your patronus to come get me, not to fight them off alone. I’ll apparate in, and we’ll do it together, that’ll make sure that all of them are prepared for what happens if they push,” Hermione said.</p><p>	Luna nodded. “I was going over the contract. The wizagamot gave us full control over how to fix the prison, as long as no escape attempts get far.”</p><p>	“They’re going to regret that.” Theo stalked around the walls of the prison with curious eyes. “How about this for an idea? Blaise and I take the walls. We reinforce them from any potential means of attack and put up the same anti-apparation wards from Hogwarts. Hermione, that will stop your plan in case of dementors, but you could still floo in.”</p><p>	Hermione waved him off. “I can grant myself an extension of the wards as long as I spill my blood and offer it an adequate trade. The land is off a leyline, so you can use those to sustain the magic, just like Hogwarts uses the ones in Scotland.”</p><p>	Theo glanced back at her and shook his head. He did not need to know how Hermione knew about the leylines, when even most people in Wizarding Europe were supposed to be kept in the dark about the locations of those, so that no one could try to manipulate the information against them at any point. “Meanwhile, you and Luna should set up some basic cuff bracelets with wards that Luna can modify for perks of good behavior. Like simple spells for avoiding a fight or something like that.”</p><p>	Luna turned to Hermione. “Could you tie wards to me like that?”</p><p>	“Yes. I could do that, but whenever you retire, you’ll need to recode everyone’s cuffs. So, at least probably a year’s notice at the minimum.”</p><p>	“No retiring without giving you at least a year’s head notice so that you can fix the wards. Understood.”</p><p>	“You’d want a master of runes to do that.”</p><p>	“Hermione, you could be one in less than an hour if you submitted your designs, from today. Let alone from the past week,” Blaise shouted from where he was starting to work with Theo on the basic design for their wards that would need to support every wall. They didn’t need to be visible, but they would need to be frequent across the building so that there weren’t any weak spots in the rooms that prisoners could exploit. </p><p>	Luna turned to Hermione. “I’m doing the right thing, the good thing. The path of light and everything else.”</p><p>	“Yes, you are.”</p><p>	Luna swallowed hard. “Would you still allow me this if Bellatrix was still alive and sitting with the other prisoners?”</p><p>	“Yes,” Hermione said, “but she’d also be dead in a couple days. I’d slip in and out and never get caught. I wouldn’t ask for permission, and I wouldn’t look back once I’d done it. Bellatrix would be dead, Luna. Because I am not on the side of the light anymore.”</p><p>	“When you’d lose your faith in the light?”</p><p>	“When I wore a piece of Tom Riddle’s soul around my neck, and that piece of him whispered in my ear about how this was always part of Dumbledore’s plan. And, even once I destroyed that thing, I still knew the truth. The light is a pretty lie, and people should fight for it, if they can. But, for most of the disillusioned souls out there, we can’t fight those battles anymore. We know what the price of complacency is.”</p><p>	“I won’t be surprised if one day, you’re in my prison.”</p><p>	“I wouldn’t be surprised either, except perhaps in the fact that you’d catch me alive.”</p><p>	Luna inclined her head and blinked back tears. She blinked back another set of tears, before looking up. “I hope you find some happiness.”</p><p>	“I will. I have three husbands to fight for my happiness in this future that we’re carving for ourselves, but we won’t let another dark lord rise, even if that means taking their spot.”</p><p>	“What makes a dark lord?” Luna asked.</p><p>	“Darkness. You can be a good person and a dark lord. You can believe in all of the right causes. You can believe that everyone deserves a second chance, but that once they’ve exhausted that, they should be dead in the ground, and they’ll call you dark.” Hermione dropped her head to Luna’s shoulder. “Or maybe, I’ll have three husbands who manage to pull me back to the light.”</p><p>	“You’re aware you’re married to slytherins, right?”</p><p>	“I’ve got a ravenclaw too.”</p><p>	Luna huffed, before wiping away her tears. “So, these wards?”</p><p>	“We’ll want leather cuffs about 300 or so, that way you have plenty for the prisoners already planned, plus extras when they come. Then, I need to design this rune that has never existed before.”</p><p>	Theo laughed from his place as he walked by. “So, in other words, Luna go by a lot of leather, while Hermione digs out books and paper and starts scrawling on the paper.”</p><p>	Hermione winked at him as she dug out some books. Basic Runes was always good to have as reference when creating runes, because you want the same base shape for everything you need, and only have to entwine them at the segments to get the desired response. </p><p>	The other book she needed was Conjunctions in Runes, which she had a copy of. Except her copy wasn’t in English, it was in Old Norse. She had her transcription spells, but even then, her magic could only hold so much power for the translation, if there wasn’t a word she knew to cover what it meant, her magic couldn’t do anything. So, she was hoping that wasn’t needed again. </p><p>	She started with choosing the basic runes that she’d need for the cuffs. Magic would be needed because they want to restrain the prisoner’s ability to reach for their magic. Then, they’d need the control rune versus the bound rune because they want the magic suppressed by an individual not just caged. The modifications wouldn’t be the base runes, they’d need to be conjunctions that she hoped that she knew. </p><p>	In the background, she heard others moving around, but she didn’t look up. She didn’t cast a charm to know how much time had passed as she wrote the runes out on top of each other. Magic as the base layer, then the control rune on top. But, that wouldn’t work correctly as she stared at it. She needed another two base runes. One on each side of the overlap, one for actual suppression, which wasn’t in her basic rune book, she needed the image from the dark mark. </p><p>	She summoned her sketch of one from her bag and scanned the drawing until she found the correct rune. She overlapped 2/3 of the rune over the main combination on the right, and she could tell that would work significantly better. Then, she still could feel a missing link in the main rune. </p><p>	She sighed deeply as she went over their intentions again. They wanted the prisoners unable to use magic to escape, while still being able to be in contact with their magic, so that it wasn’t inhumane to throw them into this jail. They wanted to make sure that their souls weren’t drained out of their bodies, and Luna wanted to be able to try to reintroduce them into society. A loyalty rune would keep them from being able to try to escape unless they could undermine the enhancement, but with the blood runes, binding the control to Luna, that could also be directly linked to Luna. So, without Luna’s express permission, they wouldn’t be able to try to reach for anything more than she gave them. Thus, eliminating the escape routes.</p><p>	That would go on the right only overlapping at the edges, because while technically combined with both magic and control, only loosely as most of it would be done with the blood itself. Hermione looked up to see Blaise staring down at her as she grinned. </p><p>	“I finished the base of the rune. That’s a good first step.”</p><p>	“You’ve also been up for 30 hours. Leave the work, and go get some sleep. You can start again when you wake up.”</p><p>	“They need me to finish this,” Hermione objected. </p><p>	“They need you to still be alive by the time that they make it out of this to, and right now, you can’t make any sort of promise that will still be the case. So, sleep.”</p><p>	Hermione pouted, but she did let him lead her to the floo and send her off to Theo.</p><p>	Theo caught her as she slipped out of the floo. He grimaced at her. “You were in a trance. We couldn’t reach you, and the ward on your paper kept changing as you moved your wand. Your eyes would go back to your books every now and then, which is the only way we knew that the magic hadn’t actually managed to pull you into a web that you couldn’t escape from.”</p><p>	“Runes are dangerous to design, because the magic will call to you to finish the design before they let you go. Because anything half carved, but imbued will kill or maim those trying to make it. That’s why so many masters and mistresses of runes teach of patience. Of having every planned before you start the actual rune design itself.”</p><p>	“But not you?”</p><p>	“No time for that. I’ve got some husbands that need to stand trial and a prison system to reform before I can even start trying to work on the trials,” she said. </p><p>	Theo snorted. “Remind me while you’re getting some sleep and finish that rune to go make sure those husbands know just how amazing their wife is to them.”</p><p>	“No. I don’t want them to know that I’m the one doing this,” she whispered. </p><p>	“Of course not. You didn’t even take credit for the stuff you did as a member of the golden trio.”</p><p>	Hermione found herself face down on her bed when she came to after that conversation. She must have fallen asleep while Theo was holding her up still. That thought would have bothered her more if she couldn’t clearly see why she had passed out. She was doing something many would deem impossible. She was creating a rune from scratch without any true planning, only a concept and a force of belief on what she needed it to do.</p><p>	Luna was waiting with a plate of food at the bottom of the stairs. “I’ve already informed the council that we are working hard to ensure that the prison in done at the end of the next month. They are astonished by our speed, but as long as its done before that, they aren’t going to send anyone to check on us. We’ll get away with this.”</p><p>	“Yes,” Hermione said. She gulfed down the food, her body craving it, even while her magic was searching for the unfinished ward. “Neither one of us can do too many of these wards in a day. Even when I finish them, it will require quite a few days. Possibly even a couple of weeks.”</p><p>	“Why?”</p><p>	“They’ll need to be carved with your blood. I can use a spell that will allow me to draw with your blood. Then, both of us will have to be connected to our magic to activate them as I draw into leather with your blood, and then when I ignite your blood into a burn that will last in leather forever more.”</p><p>	Luna’s eyes widened. “Hermione, how dark could this be considered?”</p><p>	“Not at all. At least not by current laws, because the only blood magic still allowed is runes. Granted, that might be because no one has been bold enough to try to do live runes with blood of a living person since the 1920s when they were trying to fight Grindelwald. And that all forms of sacrifice are banned.”</p><p>	Luna threw her head back. The blonde hair fell out of her ponytail as she tried not to fall over with her own laughter. “Will we survive this?”</p><p>	“I’m the brightest witch of our age by the accounts of many. We’ll make it through, and they’ll fear us.”</p><p>	“We’re doing bad things for good causes. What does that make us?”</p><p>	“All of the shades of grey, my dear,” Hermione teased. The food seemed to still be on her plate, and she raised an eyebrow.</p><p>	“Theo’s house elves have been informed that while you’re still in this house, your plate isn’t allowed to be empty on the off chance that you reach for food.”</p><p>	“By his orders, or by yours.”</p><p>	“I do not yet have the rights to command his house elves.”</p><p>	“Yet, you do have his ear enough that you could tell him to give that order and it would be done without question.”</p><p>	Luna glanced at the fireplace as if expecting someone to pop out to comment on her next answer, but no one came. “Hermione, Theo and I are playing an interesting game to see who will crack and ask the other for the next step in our flirtatious friendship. I did not ask, because that would give him a point.”</p><p>	“Oh god, I’m going to have to live with that whenever you two show up at my house,” Hermione moaned.</p><p>	“If it makes you feel better, so will Blaise. And, that the order meeting confirmed that your marriage was the best plan, despite Ron’s protests.”</p><p>	“That actually happened?”</p><p>	“Ron called for the meeting, and no one was going to deny him. Neville and Harry spoke on your behalf. Some asked where you were, to which I intervened and told them that you were busy trying to make sure that we had a prison instead of a school, because one of those would keep us safer.”</p><p>	Hermione laughed. She could feel the distaste on most of the elder’s minds when they realized that they went for sentimental over pragmatic, except for her. A child had out-planned them, again. “They’re going to be really freaked out, when they realize just what my husbands and I can accomplish when we go after something together.”</p><p>	Luna furrowed her eyes as she turned away from Hermione to lead them over to the floo. “I’m not sure that they will allow you to bring them. No one can make an argument against Professor Snape, although some still try. And, depending on the outcome of the trial, one could make an argument for Rabastan, but Draco? You’ll never get them to accept him, because you’d never be able to get Harry on your side.”</p><p>	“You assume they’ll see because I am working with the Order. Is what we’re doing not proof enough that there will be times when we stand outside of that group in order to succeed in what we want?”</p><p>	Luna inclined her head. “In that case, I will eagerly await your first appearance to the masses as a power couple. Do you need me to do anything while you’re working on the rune?”</p><p>	“Can you install a potion’s lab that’s fully stocked into Potter manor?”</p><p>	Luna coughed to cover her laughter. “The Potter’s were masters in potions for a long time, they have a potion’s lab in there. But, I can go get a full stock of ingredients assuming you can get me some money.”</p><p>	Hermione reached into her bag and took all the money that she had on her. She dumped it into Luna’s hands with a shrug. “Apparently, I have like four different accounts outside of the one my parents set up that I can take from now, so I’ll stop by as soon as we get prisoners into the new Azkaban.”</p><p>	Luna nodded. “Blaise and Theo have almost completed all the interior renovations, including a functioning dining hall and other such liberties, so they aren’t constantly in cells. We’ve also trashed any isolation rooms.”</p><p>	Hermione shook her head. The wizarding world was going to implement change faster than the muggle one for the first time in their history, just because her group of friends wasn’t planning on waiting any longer when they were thrust into the world with no care how they landed. </p><p>	She slipped into the prison to find her rune waiting for her. Her eyes were drawn to the unfinished edges that needed some form of conjunctions to help them. Twelve stages for modification could be easily fit around the core two runes, without much trouble. She could space them just like a clock that Luna could change the direction of at any time. </p><p> </p><p>	Her wand added those in and with each one, the magic sunk lower into the rune. They were no longer separate runes that she was attempting to bind together by placing them on top of each other, but runes bound by a modification leveling that could make Merlin proud. </p><p>	She tilted her head to look at the rune because those weren’t the only things missing, but she didn’t know what still needed to be held together. So, she stared at the other segments of overlapping runes with a critical eye. She needed something specific for the loyalty, to bind it in such a way that it wouldn’t hurt free will. Then, her mind filled with the idea. She could place the thought versus action conjunction straight on top of that rune. That would allow the prisoners to have the desire to breakout without the ability to do anything with it. </p><p>	The marking appeared on the rune, and some of the tension running along her body managed to fade. She knew that she was tempting the magical fates into trying to take her down, but right now she was still winning. Suppression needed several conjunctions though she realized as she looked at it. Right now, Luna could probably kill them just by clamping down on their magic, and that’s too much power to give anyone, let alone someone who might get antagonized into action. </p><p>	Moderation, a conjunction for moderation. Only attack their ability to use the magic, not the magic running through their blood, she mused. That would almost be something outside of suppression and within the realm of binding again, which is why they had to overlap so heavily. </p><p>	Her foot tapped against the floor as she tried to uncover what needed to be there. Until she thought of the protection from death conjunction. That rune was dangerous to place on a rune, because it meant that those bound by the rune couldn’t cast anything that caused death on each other. Hermione would have to gift Luna with a knife or a gun for the next Christmas, just in case she had to attack the prisoners in order to ensure their behavior. </p><p>	The marking appeared on her draft paper as the rune sunk lower into her skin. She could feel the power radiating from it now. If another rune master came up on her now, they’d know that she was forcing her will on the universe. They’d be terrified, because Hermione wasn’t starting small, which all of them know is the best way to do runes, or to make several markings versus one large rune. But, she wasn’t safe, she was Hermione Granger, and she would survive. </p><p>	The final conjunction found itself purchase in her mind without her searching for it. She needed a kill switch, not for the prisoner’s life, but for the bounding nature. She had thought it would end up in the suppression and bounding portion of the rune, but it belonged with loyalty so only Luna could remove the marking. She carved it out, and then fell backwards into the arms of Luna who was waiting for her.</p><p>	“How long?” she choked out from her lips. She could feel her lips crack from the effort of speaking, and she recalled why most would never attempt something this foolish without any pre-planning.</p><p>	“42 hours,” Luna answered. “You’ve been staring blankly at the rune for most of that. On multiple occasions, Theo was a moment away from calling another master to come make sure that you were alright.”</p><p>	“This wasn’t recommended, but it won’t kill me. Magic would have sustained me, I just would have passed out afterwards. Runes are a fickle business when it comes to actual creation. One day, I’m going to create a new base rune, just to mess with the rules. But, I won’t do that today.”</p><p>	Luna chuckled. “You’ve broken one magical rule today, and your first gut reaction is to do further next time.”</p><p>	Hermione nodded. “Now, let’s crash for like 36 hours, then we can start carving as many of those cuffs in the morning.”</p><p>	“Not real cuffs,” Luna said, confusion echoing in her voice.</p><p>	“No, leather cuffs to slip around their upper wrist. Non-dominant hand. They won’t be able to be slipped off without your permission, but that way they don’t constantly have to be wearing some form of chains, while still being safe for the rest of your future staff.”</p><p>	“Yeah, I’ve been working on that. The living Patil sister wants to come work here, she wants to do something that she didn’t do when they were children.”</p><p>	“Not surprised. Those of us who survived, didn’t come out unbroken.”</p><p>	Luna sighed. “Do you think Dumbledore ever thought about what he was doing to the rest of the students when he put Harry in a regular class with us? Do you think he knew he was creating an army of children, or was that just another unfortunate side effect of what he believed needed to happen?”</p><p>	“Ask Severus some time, he could give you a true answer. If you want my opinion, I think after fifth year, the ministry was right. He did build an army of children, even if that wasn’t his intention. And I hope that whichever gods, he now has to face, give him hell for it.” </p><p>	“The gods will do whatever they wish,” Luna replied. “But if at the end of everything, Dumbledore doesn’t regret his actions by time you get to the afterlife, I’m sure that you’ll start a fight with him.”</p><p>	Hermione nodded. Then, her eyes drooped closer to closed. “Will you get me home?”</p><p>	“Luna can’t carry you with all your dead weight. Not with all of those spells that you have up at all times to keep people from being able to cast charms on you. But, I can,” Blaise drawled, as he leaned down and picked her up into his arms. </p><p>	Hermione leaned into his comforting arms. “I did it.”</p><p>	“No one had any doubts.”</p><p>	Hermione allowed herself to drift after that. She trusted that between Blaise and Luna, she’d be safe to sleep. She’d wake up, and Theo would be laying across her bed with a put-out stare. He’d be trying to convince her that pushing herself to the edge of possible every day wasn’t necessary. </p><p>	When her eyes finally did open again, she found Theo draped around her, but without that stare. He was just smiling at her. “Blaise sent in your rune to get you a mastery. They accepted it as pure ingenious for a rune, although they were unsure about practical uses. We didn’t correct them. Welcome to the land of the living Mistress Hermione.”</p><p>	“Mistress Granger-Malfoy-Lestrange-Snape,” she corrected gently. </p><p>	Theo raised an eyebrow. “You’ll take all of the names.”</p><p>	She nodded. “Not only that but the next time a pompous government agent tries to tell me that I need to calm down and consider that I am only muggleborn, I get to look them dead in the face and tell them the truth. I am the Lady Lestrange, Lady Prince, and Lady Black, along with being the future Lady Malfoy. I have more pureblood titles than most nobility.”</p><p>	“A power marriage of the century, if the rest of them are going to press claims of rights for those families. Especially if you push for each one of you to have the votes for each family since you don’t have many other members for most of the houses, but if you push, they’re going to demand children. At least five.”</p><p>	“I suppose that could be accomplished with a set of triplets and a set of twins,” Hermione said.</p><p>	“Please tell me you’re joking.”</p><p>	“Let’s see both the twins will need to be named after constellations as the Black and Malfoy heirs. I think we could come to an agreement on those pretty easily. I’ve always been partially to the female name Cassieopia, and that’s a constellation. The other three could be whatever we wanted, unless Draco really wants all of the children to be named after constellations. I wouldn’t fight him on that. There are plenty of names, and I could stretch to include some of the Greek gods names that had stars named after them.”</p><p>	Theo leaned forward to laugh, so he wouldn’t fall off her bed. “I’m sorry have you discussed this with them?”</p><p>	“Not even slightly.” Hermione joined him in laughter once she realized that since she hadn’t talked to them about this, they might take this from out of the blue. “It’s fine, we agreed the future is going to be dealt with after we get them out of prison, so if I’ve pushed us to that level in order to get them out, they’ll probably forgive me eventually.”</p><p>	Theo shook his head. “Take it slow, they said. Hermione agreed easily, while sitting in bed with her best friend talking about finding a way to have five children for the five noble names, whilst naming them after the traditional family matters. That’s slow.”</p><p>	“Very slow. I’ll be sure to remind them that I have like a solid 80 child-bearing years left with wizarding aging.”</p><p>	Luna pushed open the door with breakfast piled on a tray, and her head tilted to the side. “Do I need to go castrate someone?”</p><p>	“Hermione,” Theo answered immediately. </p><p>	Hermione laughed. “I would be the one pushing in this case, Luna. So no need to worry about my honor.”</p><p>	“Uhuh,” Luna said. “Well, you need to eat some food, as do I. Because if we’re going to knock out as many of these cuffs as we can, we both need to keep our strength up, which means the boys will be getting us food every time we run out, while we do this.”</p><p>	Hermione picked up a piece of toast and pops it into her mouth. The taste of butter almost made her moan. She had forgotten while they were on the run, just how much a simple amount of butter could make bread taste good. They hadn’t gotten the best amount of food, but she had kept them alive. That’s got to count, or at least they better not be complaining about the food to others. “Where’s Blaise?”</p><p>	“Making sure that Kingsley has backup when people riot in front of Zabini manor about just killing the death eater scum,” Theo replied.</p><p>	“Tell them that the government won’t sponsor murder, but if they really want another battle, we can give them their wands back and see who wins.”</p><p>	Luna shook her head as she grabbed a sausage link to start eating with syrup pouring off the top. “I wish, but the government is under the impression that if we don’t get the prison done in a month, it might be beneficial to just allow for the more rowdy prisoners to be fed to the wolves that are angry parents.”</p><p>	“Has anyone tried explaining that Voldemort wasn’t the one that originally wanted to attack the school, but Dumbledore forced his hand by keeping everything he ever wanted under one roof that just happened to be a school?”</p><p>	“No one would dare besmirch his reputation like that. He had a hand in taking down both of the last two dark lords.”</p><p>	“Only if you don’t count him as one,” Hermione muttered.</p><p>	“But, my dear,” Theo sing-songed as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, “Dumbledore was on the side of the light. He never touched dark magic.”</p><p>	“Bullshit.”</p><p>	“The histories aren’t tampered,” Luna called.</p><p>	“Bullshit.”</p><p>	“The only dark lords are the ones that hurt people.”</p><p>	“Bullshit.”</p><p>	“Only those touched by darkness can ever be seen as evil.”</p><p>	“Bullshit.”</p><p>	Luna leaned over and rested her head on Hermione’s lap. “And that’s why you’ll be our favorite. You don’t believe just one accounting of history, so you went to others. You found the answers no one wants to talk about. You found the truth that no one seems to want to speak.”</p><p>	Hermione shook her head. “I didn’t find the truth, I just found something a little closer to it. The truth died with Grindelwald and Dumbledore, and it got buried with Voldemort’s death.”</p><p>	“You think that Voldemort would have known something?”</p><p>	“He knew enough to be suspicious. He would have dug deeper, and if anyone was ever able to get Dumbledore to speak about such evils it would have been the child Tom Riddle.”</p><p>	“If we had been there, we would have changed the fate of history,” Luna murmured wistfully. A longing for a world that doesn’t exist anymore, and probably never could.</p><p>	“Yes, but we were born in this one, so we’ll change this one.”</p><p>	Luna flicked her fingers and a soft fire erupted from her fingertips and danced over her skin without burning her. “They would consider this a skill only made for the greatest.”</p><p>	“Wandless and wordless,” Hermione agreed.</p><p>	“I could do this as a child though. With just a will and a power to exert that will on the world. I think perhaps, it is time that we stop trying to make the world a better place, and just make it ours.”</p><p>	“Amen to that,” Blaise drawled as he threw a leather cuff at Hermione. “We’ve got a time crunch now. Protesters failed, but now they’ve gotten Kingsley to agree if they can round up dementors, that we can open the prison immediately. No clue how fast that will be, but we need to hurry.”</p><p>	Hermione closed her eyes. They were constantly asked to do the impossible to find ways forward when no one wanted to think about morals or about who comes next. She swallowed. She was the one who this task fell on once more. “I will one day snap, Blaise.”</p><p>	“Undoubtedly. But that day is not today, so tell me how we can do this.”</p><p>	“Food,” Luna ordered.'</p><p>	“That’ll help, we’ll also need to be in Azkaban.”</p><p>	Luna raised an eyebrow. “Tell me you aren’t about to do what I think you’re going to do.”</p><p>	“Blood replenishing potions, with Theo monitoring Luna the whole time.”</p><p>	“Oh no,” Theo moaned. </p><p>	“And Blaise, you’ll have to point your wand at me, ready to attack me if she drops too low to survive. Because I won’t be able to stop myself. But, that will ensure that come morning, we can move all prisoners in.”</p><p>	Luna sighed. “Any chance we can bargain with the government.”</p><p>	“This isn’t a fight that we can win, so no.”</p><p>	“Why not?” Theo asked. “We have more than enough votes between the four of us, that if we push it to a vote, we’ll win.”</p><p>	“No, we won’t. We would force them to revise the system before we ever got anything useful out of them. Because this was nothing to them. This was an easy decision. Appease the angry citizen and give them a target to practice on. I’m not even sure whether I could vote to disagree with the motion. Disagree with the principle of using dementors, yes. Disagree with giving the people something to curse when they want someone to be punished for their children dying on the streets, no.”</p><p>	“Politics,” Luna moaned. </p><p>	“The death of righteous people.” Blaise shook his head.</p><p>	Hermione leaned over and grabbed Luna’s hands. “So don’t worry about it. We’ll make sure that the cuffs happen before the dementors, or we’ll make it happen at the same time, and I will banish more dementors than I should ever have to.”</p><p>	Luna nodded. “Alright. Tell me what I need to do, and I’ll do it.”</p><p>	Hermione sat both of them down facing each other in a relaxed position on the couch. “Blaise, you’re to keep both of us fed until it looks like we’re close to passing out, then you can switch to the healing magic, until we’re stable then throw more food at us. Theo, make sure we never run out of those cuffs again until our health gets bad.”</p><p>	At everyone’s nod, Hermione picked up the first cuff and pricked Luna’s finger. The blood pooled on the surface of the leather and with her wand she began tracing the rune she had designed. The first ten came without her even realizing that time had passed, or the way that Luna was beginning to flinch whenever she had to pick up the knife again to make her skin bleed. </p><p>	Hermione knew that Luna would know it was necessary. But bleeding for magic was never fun. Not for those that are giving the blood. Not for those who are casting the spell, but they were sometimes necessary. The necessary evils of this world. </p><p>	She ate some food before picking up the eleventh piece of the leather. She didn’t really take a break ever. She did notice magic settling around her at some point, but she figured that was the boys trying to make sure that her heart didn’t give out from magical exhaustion. </p><p>	Her eyes drooped closed for a moment, and Theo’s hand pushed her gently into the corner of the couch. “Rest some, Hermione. You’ve done about 100 today. At this rate, it’ll take us three days. Luna can rest. You can rest. I’ll wake you up at the start of the sun rise tomorrow.”</p><p>	Hermione lobbed her head onto his arm to stare in his eyes. “I need the blue potion from my bag tonight and the third night. No matter what I say tomorrow do not let me have it. Give me the purple one instead.”</p><p>	“Why?”</p><p>	“Risky behavior that will allow me to use more magic in these coming days, then what I technically should have access to without doing extensive training to build up my reserves, but we don’t have the time. This will allow me to cheat the system. If I take the blue potion today, I’ll be on full strength tomorrow. The purple potion the next day will balance my system, force me to sleep. Then, when I awaken, I can finish the cuffs. Another blue potion to get me into non-exhaustion levels.”</p><p>	Theo summoned her bag and rifled through until he found a blue vial. “I hope you know,” Theo whispered, “that if I didn’t trust that you had the best intentions at heart, I would easily lock you up to be less of a danger to yourself.”</p><p>	“I’ll work myself into the grave, but it won’t be anytime soon. The potions aren’t healthy, but they won’t kill me as long as I don’t become reliant on them, which is why I’m not allowing myself three days in a row. Even though that wouldn’t be enough to force me into withdrawal, it would force me into a reliant state where I’d need you to lock me away from any access to the ingredients or the potion.”</p><p>	“You think you could brew it in that state?”</p><p>	“I brew Polyjuice in a bathroom in third year while upset and hurt. Yes.” She tipped the bottle into her mouth and let the magic fill her system as she closed her eyes. </p><p>	Too soon after, she was shook awake with Luna staring at her wide eyes. “You don’t feel right,” Luna murmured low enough that neither one of the others could hear.</p><p>	“I shouldn’t. I’m using a special helper today. You ready?”</p><p>	“I don’t know if I can take my hands being punctured anymore, even with you healing them after every stab, they feel sensitive.”</p><p>	“Resonating nerve tissue.”</p><p>	“Hermione,” Luna warned. </p><p>	“I can use your legs, but you couldn’t be wearing pants, and you’d flinch a lot more. We could use your upper arms, but I’d need you to be much more careful.”</p><p>	Luna glared but vanished her pants regardless. This was far too important to allow either of them to play a game of chicken where they were more afraid of what they were doing than of the consequences of letting the rest of the government win. </p><p>	Hermione swung one leg over Luna’s to trap her leg from being able to kick her, and the magic swept her up as she split tiny amounts of blood surged into the newest set of runes. She could feel the way that Luna was keeping her moans to herself as the lines slowly dotted her thighs. </p><p>	Hermione would heal them when the deed was done. The pain shouldn’t be affecting her much, because Hermione had already cast the pain dampening spell that most healers used for any type of surgery. She had enough sense to cast that before even remotely considering to cut a friend. </p><p>	By the time that someone pulled her back, the magical exhaustion was about to cause her to stab Luna for real. So, she blinked up at Blaise this time with a frown on her face. “Give me the potion I told Theo to.”</p><p>	“I thought you’d be begging for the other one.”</p><p>	Hermione cocked a grin at him. The smile was weak and honestly betrayed most of her exhaustion with the way that it didn’t quite sit right on her face. Closer to something that they would have seen on Bellatrix than on what should be a pure and bright girl. “I have magically bound husbands, who I am sure are cussing me out right about now for draining them of whatever little magic they can still feel. But, it is enough to keep me from trying to kill you for the other potion.”</p><p>	“What does this one do?” he asked as he handed it over.</p><p>	She chugged it down before the smell of dried vomit could hit her nose, because that’s what this one smelled like. It would cause her to feel the effects of the previous potion without taking another full dose. It wouldn’t actually push her magic levels up, which was why she’d probably be seconds away from unconsciousness the next night. “It mimics the effects of the one I took last night without actually doing anything.”</p><p>	Blaise closed his eyes. “Please don’t make me have to tell the husbands you saved from certain death that you’ve made them widows within the first month, also trying to save them.”</p><p>	“Don’t worry, I have to stand trial for them as their wife and as the intelligence behind the golden trio.”</p><p>	“You’re a menace.”</p><p>	“My husbands don’t know it yet, but they’ll agree with you by the end.” With that she slipped into a dreamless sleep. Her magic levels were too depleted to allow her soul to have any hopes and dreams while she was sleeping on this level. </p><p>	She woke up on her own with massive pain in her head and turned to the closest person. “To anyone that has been not in a magical state for the last 48 hours, how many of those cuffs do I need to do today to be done with this shit?”</p><p>	Luna didn’t even bother opening her eyes, she just waved a hand over the pile and numbers floated up. “Green are done, red are to be done.”</p><p>	Hermione looked at the numbers in shock. 275 were in the green with only 25 in the red. She shouldn’t have been able to do that in a single day even with the magical potion unless they had pushed to the edge of their physical boundaries for everyone else. </p><p>	“We might have helped you push,” Theo explained.</p><p>	Hermione nodded. “You all will get them onto prisoners while I recoup here after we do the 25 and heal Luna.”</p><p>	“You can heal me?”</p><p>	“Yes. I have to wait until it’s all done, otherwise I have to heal you after every cuff for the magic to still take, but yes. My original plan was to do that, but with the time crunch that would have costed close to triple the magical energy.”</p><p>	Luna rolled into a seated position. “Let’s finish this.”</p><p>	Hermione picked up the knife and wand in her dual stance and started. The process came like second nature by now. The whole design of the magic was seamless to her nature. She could mark out this rune in her sleep. She could probably teach the rune in her sleep too. Nothing between her and the rune existed. </p><p>	When she couldn’t pick up another cuff, she frowned. </p><p>	Luna reached out to cup Hermione’s face and drag her eyes back up to the normal level. “You did it, Hermione. We’re done.”</p><p>	Hermione released the magic, allowing the seal to form on every cuff and releasing her from the constant drain of them. Before she leaned into Luna’s arms to press her wand straight into Luna’s thigh. The healing spells fell from her lips as she watched the wounds heal over.</p><p>	Luna smiled with a grim expression on her face. “The price of magic is pain, and only those we trust are able to perform this on us without any issue. But then, they have to live with hurting those they love, which is just another price to the magic.”</p><p>	Hermione reached out a hand and summoned her final potion. “That’s the nature of all things in this world, this one just hurts us more.”</p><p>	Luna shook her head as she watched until Hermione slipped into sleep. Then her and the boys headed to get all of the prisoners.</p><p>	Hermione was planning on sleeping until she was rested, but something kept nudging her leg. Knock, knock, knock. Finally, she opened her eyes ready to knock a fist into whoever dared to wake her until she saw the patronus of a little rabbit still bumping into her.</p><p>	“Hermione, I’ve got the prisoner into Azkaban, but the citizens are here with dementors. They released them and said you’re welcome,” Luna said her voice frantic and slightly afraid. Even without the dementors coming for her, the fear they inspired was present.</p><p>	Hermione stood up and checked her balance. She wasn’t doing great on reserves, but she at least she could walk herself where she needed to go. Which was the floo. She stepped over many of the lines on the ground, she wasn’t sure why, but it seemed important. </p><p>	The fire flickered all around her as she stepped out of the floo. She took in all of the angry faces staring back at her, and she met their gazes head on. “I was under the impression that you all knew once the prisoners were transferred here, we needed no assistance.”</p><p>	“We give it anyway. These scum do not deserve to have an inch of happiness,” a mother called out from the crowd.</p><p>	Hermione could understand the sentiment. She really could, because once upon a time she would have been right there with them, but that was how evil was bred. When you could let just a little into your soul because of how evil they were, then they won. They wouldn’t win the way they wished, but they would win. </p><p>	She summoned her strength, but she needed her happiness. The fear bore down upon her, but it would do nothing. She had worn a horcrux from the darkest soul she knew of around her neck, and the dementors could not match the fear that the damned locket inspired. She met the fear head on, and she did not flinch even as she could see the crowd flinch as they realized that the dementors were not fighting her back as they had all assumed. </p><p>	Her eyes travelled down the hall of cells, where Luna was struggling to keep the dementors back far enough. She wasn’t able to fight off this many dementors at once, not with the limited happiness she was still calling with. The war had taken that strength from many, but not Hermione Granger. Because Hermione was still choosing not to focus on a memory. If she did that, she wouldn’t have enough to push through the crowd. Her wand felt heavy in her hand, but she ignored it.</p><p>	The second cell on the right was Draco’s, the husband closest to her age. When she got him out of this jail because child soldiers didn’t deserve to be punished for their parents’ actions, he would be able to do whatever he chose. His scores had often rivaled hers in school. He could be a healer or a master in any subject. They could have research projects holding on, and they’d grin and tease each other from a fancy couch as they looked at all of the good they could do. </p><p>	The fifth cell on the left was Rabastan’s, the husband she never would have known if fate hadn’t dragged their souls together for whatever purpose was needed. He hadn’t had his own free will in decades, multiple if she understood correctly. She would get him out of this prison and make sure that he had all of the money he could need to find whatever he wanted in life. She wouldn’t ask him to get a job ever, he’d be free to do as he pleased. She imagined that if they ever chose to have children, he’d be the one at home making sure that everything was for them, no matter the day. </p><p>	The farthest cell away from the rest was Severus’, the husband potentially closest to a real match based on everything that was known about them. The spy for the order, and the man that she respected more than any other. And a man that she had saved from certain death twice. He’d get out and go back to teaching. Teaching without having to worry about inspiring fear so that his position as a spy wasn’t in question. A series of essays for students, that he could offer actual feedback on without the students being pureblood or his master get into a torturing mood.</p><p>	And herself, she would have a nice room with her husbands anytime that she chose. She’d have a mastery or two. Maybe she’d drag herself to Hogwarts as a professor. Or maybe she’d find a career in slapping the fools at the ministry. Both would make her happy. Everything would make her happy as long as she managed to save these people. Because then her soul would be balanced. She’d already given enough to save everyone. </p><p>	Her lips twitched up into a smile, and she raised her wand, or Bellatrix’s wand more accurately, stolen after being tortured, but by now it responded to her call. It felt her soul as much as Bellatrix’s. “Expecto patronum,” she yelled.</p><p>	The featherfaun burst from her wand straight into the crowd of dementors. It bucked and charged each and every one, feeding off Hermione’s power, her strength, and her happiness. One by one the thirty odd dementors that the public had dragged in were dispersed from the patronus in front of her. </p><p>	Hermione turned to the public. “You are dismissed. You have no right to be here, and anytime you try to bring them back, I will show up, and they are no match for me.”</p><p>	Luna picked herself up from the ground. “The save was appreciated, Hermione.”</p><p>	Hermione allowed her patronus to fade as she gave a bow to Luna. “Of course. I told you that as long as this burden is yours to bare, I will come to your aid.”</p><p>	Draco pushed towards the edge of the cell where he could almost make out his wife. “Was that a true featherfaun patronus?”</p><p>	“Yes, my dearest. Mine has raven feathers, but the only one, I’ve ever seen had eagle feathers. I suppose that fiction versus hidden has been answered by me twice now. Once by sight and memory, and once by magic.”</p><p>	“I’m your dearest,” he teased as the other death eater’s turned to stare at them.</p><p>	“I think I shall call you, my dearest. I’ll call Rabastan, my treasure. And Severus, I shall call Severus lest he try to hex me when I turn my back for calling him a nickname.”</p><p>	“That just means you have to be creative, Miss Granger.”</p><p>	“It’s Mistress Granger, now,” Luna corrected softly. “Blaise submitted the rune she created that binds you all while she was out after creating these facilities. It was accepted this morning.”</p><p>	Hermione grinned before leaving the prison. She couldn’t stay long and risk anyone trying to claim that she wasn’t allowing her husbands to wait trial in the correct conditions, regardless of her opinions on the fact they are even there while awaiting this trial. She would not intervene yet, because she had cases to plan.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Draco's Trial</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Hermione walks into the courtroom to defend her first husband, because child soldiers shouldn't be put on trial, they need therapy.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hermione had done trial prep for the last week. Draco’s trial was supposed to be this afternoon, and she was his primary defender. She could have hired someone, but honestly with how many times she had gone over the case file and the laws of both Wizarding Britain and Great Britain, she probably had the better argument for the case already prepared. That made her the best bet for securing his freedom. </p>
<p>	She’d spent some time looking at the other cases as well, but both of those cases weren’t until the week after, so she needed Draco’s first and forefront in her mind. Especially since his was the least clear cut of all of the cases. She had to rely on actually legal wording versus proving the absence of wrong-doing.</p>
<p>	She had taken some money from the accounts that she now had access to in order to buy a proper formal set of robes that made her look every inch of a pureblood witch. She had also gotten the sleeves specialized so while she had the style of a lady, the scar carving mudblood into her arm was visible from the angle she held herself.</p>
<p>	Narcissa would be meeting her in front of the ministry before they both walked into his trial. They had agreed on her terms. She would stand for the son and not the father, and Narcissa would be in her debt even still for the amount of deeds she’d done. </p>
<p>	The floo was becoming common place for her. She spent most of her time alternating between the manor that her husbands would be coming home to, and going over to Nott manor to get as drunk as possible when she wasn’t sure what the hell her life would be like after she won the trials. </p>
<p>	As she stepped out of the flames, Narcissa linked arms with her. “The prosecution is going for a life sentence and says that if you as his wife agree to a plea, they might allow for him to only serve seven years, one for each of his Hogwarts years.”</p>
<p>	“I have no plans, Narcissa, to allow any of my husbands to sit in that jail for a day after their trial.”</p>
<p>	Hermione then tugged the both of them forward and down the long winding halls. She did not stop for any of the people calling her name. She did not wave hi to Arthur as they passed, as she had been informed that while her actions were honorable, they were not family, and they’d rather not keep pretending. She also did not give Ron any attention as she swept by him still trying to apply to the auror department. They’d take him eventually, he had the correct requirements because of her.</p>
<p>	The prosecution stood before the door to stare at her before they both entered the court together as was custom.</p>
<p>	Narcissa unlinked her arms and entered the courtroom, only slightly more pale than normal but given the kind of day it was, it might have been considered a miracle if she managed to stay upright through the whole procedure. This court case could take hours based on what Hermione had noticed.</p>
<p>	“Mrs. Granger, I would prefer if you took the plea. It would save us all some time and would in fact make my life significantly easier. If you have some small adjustment to make to the agreement, I am sure that I could accommodate you.”</p>
<p>	“It is Mistress Granger-Lestrange-Malfoy-Snape. I would suggest you use that if you wish to call me by maiden name. I would also answer to Lady Lestrange, Lady Black, or Lady Prince. As those are also my titles. I would suggest not failing to call me one of those to the jury of the Lords and Ladies, I’ve heard that they are particular about their titles. And, my husband is innocent of all wrong-doing.” With that she stalked into the court room. She nodded in respect to the honorable Lord Abbot as she took her spot in front of her husband. Her body would be his shield today, and her mind his weapon. </p>
<p>	The prosecution entered last with a frown on her face. No doubt preparing endless lists of crimes to which Draco could be accused of. Hermione believed that the title for address would be Ms. Selwyn a distant cousin of the crazy divination teacher. </p>
<p>	“The court gathers here today to pass judgement on Draco Malfoy, member of the sacred 28, as having been accused of crimes of following the side of darkness on the last war. How does the prosecution plan on charging?”</p>
<p>	“The prosecution, Lord Abbot, believes that he should be tried as an adult on full death eater charges as he bares the dark mark on his forearm.”</p>
<p>	“And the defendant?”</p>
<p>	“Pleads not guilty, Lord Abbot.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot held up a hand to stop the prosecution from interrupting quite yet. “You plan on proving that he does not in fact have the dark mark on his arm?”</p>
<p>	“No, I will prove that the mark was not made with a clear mind, with a clear conscience, nor any other mental facilities that would suggest that he was complicit in his markings, and that since taking the mark most of his crimes have been accidents or done under direct duress.” </p>
<p>	“You understand why that is hard for this court to accept?”</p>
<p>	“Not at all, Lord Abbot, but I will happily wait until a rebuttal period. Though I would like to request that I be given the opportunity after each piece of evidence, so that neither side must start piling all their evidence on top of each other each back and forth debate,” Hermione said. The pleasant tone something that Theo had been teaching her. She needed to make them believe that she was in fact the type of person that their systems would support.</p>
<p>	“I believe that is reasonable in this instance.” Lord Abbot turns to the other 12 members sitting in on this trial. “All in favor.”</p>
<p>	Hermione watched as all but one judge ruled in her favor. Not that she was surprised that Lord Goyle was against any motion presented on this floor. He had a grudge against both herself and Draco for not being able to save his son. An unfortunate casualty of this war.</p>
<p>	“You may begin Madame Selwyn with your first piece of evidence.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn takes a deep breath. “My first piece of evidence is as mentioned in my opening statement the dark mark located on his upper left arm. Mr. Malfoy if you would roll up your sleeve to show the members of this trial the proof.”</p>
<p>	Draco carefully rolled the sleeve in a controlled fashion until it folded over and revealed the dark mark.</p>
<p>	“Lords and ladies, this country has never once been one to stray from the moral compasses of society. We follow the laws of the Queen, and we do not meddle with muggles though we do follow their monarch, long have they served us,” Hermione began. The eyes of the whole court followed her words, as they didn’t expect to here her start of with a message about the queen. In her definite defense she hadn’t really been planning on starting there either, but the prosecution got to determine where she goes on this day.</p>
<p>	“This nation has never accepted the concept of child soldiers. That has been outlawed since the beginning of war almost. If they are not of the age of maturity, they do not belong in an army. Yet, Voldemort called him to be marked for this army when he was just 16 years old. Under the age of maturity, perhaps not by a lot, but under all the same. He had no access to magic to defend himself. At the time, his father was in prison, his mother held prisoner. He had no one to run to. I encourage you to think of the dark mark not as a willing choice made, but of one forced upon a child.”</p>
<p>	She paused to take a deep breath. “I am a child solider. I was made one when I was 11 years old and fought Voldemort for the first time. Draco was made one much later into the war, but the intent was clear. He should not be judged for a mark that makes him a victim of Voldemort’s unfair war.”</p>
<p>	Lady Selwyn sat on the panel and seemed to ignore the fact that one of her family members was part of this court session in the slightest. “You call yourself a child solider and say that we should consider you victims, who would you have us judge for your own recruitment? Surely, you will not attempt to tell me that you believe it to be Voldemort as well.”</p>
<p>	“No, I would not. I would tell you that fault lies with Dumbledore.”</p>
<p>	“You do not address him properly,” Lord Abbot warned.</p>
<p>	“And I shall not. I will not drag the dead to trial. But, I do believe that most of the crimes committed against me were orchestrated by him, and I will not offer him respect while that remains true.”</p>
<p>	Inclined heads told her that she won that part of the battle. They would not question her defense of this charge any further. Whether all of them agreed with her statement would be up to the discretion at the end of this trial, and she would have no indication of their opinions before that time has come to pass.</p>
<p>	“My second piece of evidence, is with the attempted murder of Dumbledore, which was widely distributed across the house of Slytherin during Mr. Malfoy’s six year. We have multiple signatures of people who accepted pleas in return for this information.”</p>
<p>	“Under which time, if Draco did not perform this task, he would be tortured and his mother would be killed,” Hermione retorted softly. Her tone was gentle as if encouraging every single member sitting in the court to imagine what would have happened if they were in these situations. Would they have continued to fight, or would have they given in for their family? Many of them were mostly just glad that this choice didn’t fall upon them to make.</p>
<p>	“Do you have any proof?” Selwyn asked.</p>
<p>	“I have Narcissa Malfoy willing to stand witness under the truth serum.”</p>
<p>	“Too expensive to waste on such a trial.”</p>
<p>	“Provided by myself to this humble jury for every other trial to come through in the coming weeks,” Hermione continued. </p>
<p>	“Lady Malfoy would you consent out loud for the court?”</p>
<p>	“I will gladly take the truth serum and tell you about the year my son was drafted into this horrible war.”</p>
<p>	Nods came from across the aisle. Hermione helped the matriarch of the blacks down onto the court floor and gave her the three drops of the serum. “Ma’am, would you please tell us in your own words what happened two years ago?”</p>
<p>	“My husband got arrested. It was not my place to question, and by that point he had already offered my house to the monster of Voldemort. Voldemort was angry, he wanted someone to punish for the others actions, but they were locked away, and he couldn’t reach them at the moment. He wanted to torture my son, but I deflected him by telling him that Draco was near enough to a man that he could take his father’s job. Well, Voldemort said that he had no intents to make child soldiers, that he’d prefer dead bodies. I couldn’t let my son die. I just couldn’t. So, I pointed out that the golden trio were child soldiers of Dumbledore, and someone needed to even the playing field.” </p>
<p>	Tears were streaming down her face, and she had to take several gulps of air before she could continue. “He told my son that the price of failure was that he’d kill me first and make him watch as I bled out onto the floor. Then, he’d kill Draco. And finally once all was said and done, he’d kill Lucius in the end because the man had failed to learn how to teach himself or his son how to win a simple battle. I begged anyone for help. My sister was insane, but she did help me get Severus to agree to make sure that my son lived. Please don’t blame him for that. Please, I put him there to save him.”</p>
<p>	Hermione titled her head to stare at the judges, all of whom had fear in their eyes. She could leave the story there. She could let them believe that was the end of the story. “Now imagine that fear. Imagine the weight of that hanging over your head. You have your wand pointed at the man you have to kill so that your family lives. That’s the price to keep the ones you love alive. One person for three. And, you still don’t kill him. You still don’t use the final push that kills that man. How could any of you say that the adult sitting before you, a child no less than a year ago, that managed to spare the life knowing that it could doom his family is evil enough to deserve a sentence as a death eater?”</p>
<p>	“Lady Malfoy, while you are still under the effects of a truth serum, may I ask you about your son’s prejudices?” Selwyn had a sick smile on her face as she was sure that this would be a good nail in his coffin.</p>
<p>	Narcissa’s eyes widened as she turned to the panel. “My husband taught him the family words, about how purity mattered. He believed it all for a long time, but in private we started talking after his third year. Because there was this muggleborn girl with scores better than his and with the ability to hurt him without ever using magic. Then, he watched as those prejudices destroyed his family. I cannot possibly try to explain prejudices to this esteemed panel, because they are nuanced and different for each person. But, I can say that I do not believe my son would ever deliberately face off against someone because of blood.”</p>
<p>	“I can further confirm that magic blessed a union between myself and Mr. Malfoy. I find it difficult to believe that magic would bind me to someone who still hates the very essence of who I am.”<br/>	“Pardon me,” Selwyn countered. “Last time I checked polyamorous marriages were outlawed in both muggle and wizarding Britain.”</p>
<p>	“There is an exception in the law for wizarding Britain, if you perform a marriage where magic chooses whether you get to live with your partner with your magic bound together for all eternity or die that very day, and magic claims more than one person, well the government cannot say anything against it, because the magic chose.”</p>
<p>	Lord Greengrass turned his head to stare at Hermione with sharp eyes. “You have been married by magic’s blessing.”</p>
<p>	“Yes, my Lord.”</p>
<p>	“Then, you can reach for your husbands’ magic. You could burn down the world with nothing more than their strength to guide you. Why are you standing before the court instead of just telling us what we should be doing?”</p>
<p>	Hermione shrugged. She had no like of politics, but she understood the point being made. In particular the point being made to Madame Selwyn who has somehow got it into her crazy head that Hermione didn’t have a plan for all of this to go down. “Because the public has every right to be angry, they deserve to have their voices heard, even when legally they have no foothold.”</p>
<p>	“Because child soldiers.”</p>
<p>	“Because when you are 11 when the first battle of the second war is fought, it is hard to choose a side on your own. Because at 11, you’re practically always going to end up on whichever side your parents stand on. Because, no one should be punished for the actions of their parents. Because, when Draco Malfoy had a choice to make. To stand between Bellatrix and Harry Potter, he chose to not give her Harry Potter.”</p>
<p>	“By those actions, he sent you to Bellatrix,” Selwyn clarified.</p>
<p>	“Indeed. But, I could survive the torture. I could make sure that Voldemort wasn’t called because Harry Potter wasn’t there. I could play for time.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot glanced over at the fellow members of his panel before turning back to Hermione. “Are you claiming that while one of the things he is blamed of doing, allowing your torture, you do not hold him responsible for?”</p>
<p>	“No. I am claiming that the action actually assisted the end of the war and could easily be classified as an attempt to help the rebellion at the time,” Hermione said rephrasing her previous explanation. This was one of the many reasons that she had to be the one defending Draco. </p>
<p>	Harry stood from the audience and sought out Hermione’s eyes. “Lord Abbot, permission to speak.”</p>
<p>	“Certainly.”</p>
<p>	“Draco Malfoy was a bully plain and simple. But that’s all someone our age should be able to be. We shouldn’t have had to be soldiers for a war. We shouldn’t have had to stand between family and friends. Childhood bullies learn how to be respectful as they grow because they realize that to hurt others is to hurt themselves, but you don’t get that luxury when you aren’t allowed to grow. I will never have the opportunity to do schoolwork without worrying for my life. Draco Malfoy will never have the chance to learn traditionally that bullying is bad. Instead, he got it tortured out. Do not punish him for actions he took as a child, and do not punish him for actions that were not his own.”</p>
<p>	Hermione tossed a smile back to Harry. She knew that he was debating coming to help her speak, but he hadn’t ever confirmed his decision, but with him standing right there, she knew exactly what he was saying in this moment. “Please, my lords and my ladies, think about the fact that none of this was ever meant to happen to children.”</p>
<p>	“Mrs. Granger, is acting in her best interests. She wants the power that comes from having a Malfoy child.”</p>
<p>	Hermione coughed to cover her laughter. She was surprised it took the woman this long before losing her composure and using the wrong name. She had been expecting it since they met outside the courtroom. She didn’t like the fact that Hermione was willing to fight for men that most would be happy to watch fade out of the community in Azkaban. </p>
<p>	Draco turned and if looks could kill, this woman would be dead in a hole. Still, he forced down his initial anger. “If you must address my wife, you should do so by calling her Mistress Granger or Lady Black, Lady Lestrange, or Lady Prince. If you still find all of these too formal, then you are welcome to labeling her as Mrs. Granger-Malfoy-Lestrange-Snape. Otherwise, we will have to assume you are attempting to blacken the reputation of one of the members of the golden trio, who gave everything to save us.”</p>
<p>	“You are a prisoner, you have no right to speak.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot furrowed his brow as he grimaces at the young Selwyn daughter. She had a decent head on her shoulders, but she was not used to someone standing against her arguing against the moral high ground while trying to shift it. “He has no right to speak to the council in his defense. He has every right to correct your labeling of his wife.”</p>
<p>	Hermione stepped forward to drag attention away from the little feud growing. “It is no matter, my lord. I have no issues with the title she chose even if it isn’t as polite as others.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot nodded. That was good, because if she pushed for the woman to be punished he would have no choice but to allow it on the basis that she was a lady of multiple houses in the same manner that Lady Malfoy would have been before the wedding took place. “Are there any further arguments?”</p>
<p>	Selwyn shook her head looking disappointed in the justice system.</p>
<p>	Hermione also shook her head. </p>
<p>	The council casted a gentle silencing charm around themselves as they started to deliberate. They had plenty to think about, because on one hand they had a marked death eater standing before them, and on the other hand, that child was not capable of making the decisions. </p>
<p>	Hermione waited patiently. They had no clue that her plan was to argue for each of her husbands until such a time that they were safe, and if any of them were sent back to Azkaban, well then she was just going to tear down the building again. Luna would be upset, but she’d understand. She’d get them to the continent and make them wait in the house until the mark faded for good as he was truly dead and gone now.</p>
<p>	The charm cancelled and the entire council was standing. “A decision has been reached,” Lord Selwyn said. </p>
<p>	“And while it was a close call only 7-6, in the end, the council found Draco Malfoy innocent of the charge brought against him,” Lord Abbot announced. “And, I would offer the warning to the young man, that he should avoid ever showing up here at our court again, because that mercy would be hard to find a second time.”</p>
<p>	Draco stood for the first time since he had been dragged into the court. “Thank you, Lord Abbot. And, allow me to be the first to assure you that I never planned on breaking any law, and I certainly shall not now that the people that were forcing me our dead in their graves.”</p>
<p>	The lords and ladies left the deliberation room. </p>
<p>	Selwyn turned to Hermione with an angry look on her face. “You may have gotten one death eater out of his fate, but you will get no more.”</p>
<p>	“Don’t bet on that, my dear,” Hermione replied her eyes never leaving Draco. “I have two more husbands that were innocent of the crimes they stand accused of, and I will not allow them to rot while I still have magic running through my blood.”</p>
<p>	“You’re muggleborn.”</p>
<p>	Hermione lifted her left arm, where the angry carving rested. She twisted her lips into a cruel mockery of a smile as she turned to Selwyn. “I know, someone took the time to make sure that no matter what I did, I would never be able to forget that I have no place here.”</p>
<p>	“You cannot just mock our laws.”</p>
<p>	Draco sighed. “Look, Ms. Selwyn, you have no power here. Not by the rules of the 28, and not by the laws you swear to defend. You may want me in a prison cell, but I have been freed. I have been deemed a victim of the war.”</p>
<p>	“Do you deny that your actions hurt others?”</p>
<p>	“My actions hurt not only others but also myself. Yet, I was doing it as a child scared for his parents with a tyrannical blood purist living on his mother’s fancy couch. I don’t know whether I deserve freedom, but my wife fought for it, for me, so I will not squander it.”</p>
<p>	Hermione smiled over at Draco, a real one. She placed her hands over his cuffs, and she willed them away. Technically only Luna should have been able to, but she was a stubborn witch, and it was her rune.</p>
<p>	Draco smiled back as he could access all of his magic. “I will see you next week, Ms. Selwyn. I have husbands to see freed as well.”</p>
<p>	Hermione led him out of the courtroom. She brushed past others. “You don’t have to come to the trials, if you wish to be more acquainted with your freedom. I promise I will fight for them.”</p>
<p>	“I know. I have figured out by now that you wouldn’t dare break your own word, but you shouldn’t have to fight alone. Afterall, we’re married.”</p>
<p>	“Sham of a situation, but perhaps one of the few things that Tom Riddle led to that wasn’t awful,” she teased, as she led both of them straight into the floo. “Potter manor,” she called.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>One, in case you can't tell I have extreme anger for anyone who uses child soldiers, and I remain adament that Dumbledore was the larger dick in that case. </p>
<p>Two, I had to add another chapter to this because halfway through chapter 7 was like 20,000 words, and the other half still had to be written and I decided to split the chapter.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Severus' Trial</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Hermione arrives at court once more to take on someone's case, this time Severus'.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A week passed with Draco and Hermione co-existing in the house of their choice. The potter manor served their needs with no issue. They generally stayed in their respective rooms. Neither of them brought up the marriage. Perhaps, neither of them wanted to grow without the others, or perhaps Hermione was terrified and Draco was broken. </p>
<p>	Hermione went to her room the night before Severus’ trial, but instead of sleeping, she went over every spell she knew. She went over who to attack first to break his bonds so that he could help her run. She wouldn’t let her husbands stay in prison, and she was a horrible person, but she wouldn’t allow it. Not once. </p>
<p>	The magic curled up her body and settled in her chest. She knew the truth would be that if it ever came down to a fight or to allowing those that magic bound her to, to suffer, she would willingly invoke the same pain that Bellatrix inflicted upon her. She would use every trick she knew to save them. By her magic’s will, by her own will, she was no longer sure. </p>
<p>	A knock sounded on her door, and her head popped up. Both Theo and Blaise could walk through with little difficulty because of the fact that she had keyed the wards to them just in case, but they wouldn’t show up tonight. They knew her well enough to know that she would be in a state close to ready for a battle and that wouldn’t be the greatest time for deep and insightful conversation. “It’s open,” she called. </p>
<p>	Draco pushed the door in with a blanket hanging down from his shoulders. In that moment, he looked more like the child that she knew from Hogwarts, than the man she had saved from a life sentence in a court room. “I can’t sleep.”</p>
<p>	“Why?”</p>
<p>	“Because I am alone in a bed, and I am afraid that the people who may one day share my bed won’t be able to join me as of tomorrow. Because I have no clue how to win these fights when the world wants people to blame, and I was one of the few Hogwarts students to get out of the sentencing. Because I trust you, but I don’t know if I believe you.”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded. “Well, for starters, you don’t have to be alone in a bed tonight. We can use the bedroom made for all four of us and curl up on that huge bed with each other. We can hold each other in silence or in conversation. And as one of the people you are supposed to bring to your bed, that will just need to be enough.”</p>
<p>	Draco bit down on his bottom lip. “It won’t bother you.”</p>
<p>	“I’ll hold you while you sleep, Draco. I wouldn’t have slept either way.”</p>
<p>	“Why?” he echoed her question from earlier. Sometimes it felt like that is the only thing that he could be doing during times like this. </p>
<p>	“Because I’m going to fight for Severus and Rabastan tomorrow. Severus’ trial is first, then his. And I will win them both.”</p>
<p>	Draco swallowed and had a look on his face that gave away that he had plenty more questions following that statement. </p>
<p>	Hermione cut him off by standing up from the bed in her pjs. They weren’t fancy, but they were also no longer one of her boys old t-shirts. She had picked up a proper gown for sleeping while waiting for some of the ingredients for Severus. </p>
<p>	His eyes went wide as he took her in. “If you wish to change, I can wait in the other bedroom.”</p>
<p>	“Why change when this is what I’m comfortable sleeping in?”</p>
<p>	“Possibly because I am your husband and that is closer to things that we did not talk about.”</p>
<p>	Hermione laughed. True and bright, because he’s right. They never talked about sex, and she couldn’t care less. “Well, unless you’re planning on trying something when you’re clearly frightened for the morning, I don’t think I need to worry.”</p>
<p>	“I am just a man,” he said lightly.</p>
<p>	“And I am just a woman. Only both of us are also wizards. And I’m willing to put money, on the fact that I am stronger than you with that magic.”</p>
<p>	“Trained by Bellatrix and my father.”</p>
<p>	“Tortured by Bellatrix, survived with my sanity intact. Ridiculed by your father, managed to get that to backfire completely. Stood in front of a version of Tom Riddle, didn’t give in,” she retorted just as likely. </p>
<p>	“You do truly believe you could beat me?”</p>
<p>	“I could beat both you and Rabastan in a fight that I saw coming. If you got a drop on me, that would change enough for me to doubt whether I’d win or not.”</p>
<p>	“But not Severus?”</p>
<p>	“I don’t believe that I could ever bring myself to attack Severus. In terms of fighting ability, we might be evenly matched by now. Either that or he does have me beat, in which case it wouldn’t matter. But, I don’t think I could hurt him even if he was coming at me.”</p>
<p>	Draco tilted his head to the side to stare at his wife in front of him. For once neither of them are shying away from any form of conversation. They are by all means being frank and honest. He reached out a hand with the blanket trailing over his arm.</p>
<p>	She grabbed the outstretched hand. She led them to the bedroom with the largest bed in it, and also with the most space. She had made sure that there were four dressers in the room, and enough room in the closet to store four people’s robes. She had to charm that part of the closet, but she had no qualms. She pursed her lips as she took in the room for the first time since she had prepped it for them. </p>
<p>	Draco dropped her hand as he walked in. Then, he spun to her abruptly with a smile on his face and a light in his eyes, that she didn’t think she’d ever been privileged enough to see before. A smile that made the room look as though it could be lit with his face alone. </p>
<p>	Hermione reached for her wand, and she sent the little magic spells over to set the lights in the room on and to turn down the bed. </p>
<p>	“Hermione, you made a place for all of us.”</p>
<p>	“Well, yeah. We weren’t sure how long we’d need here in this house, and I wasn’t going to leave anything to chance. We have no clue about the future, so it seemed better to prep for any outcome.”</p>
<p>	Draco felt the corners of his lips pull up into a smile. Because he’s so sure that there is more to the story. That she knew full well that there was more to the story. “Of course. So, I’ll just take this dresser,” he said as he walked to the dresser that he was almost positive was meant for Severus, based on the design being similar to his office desk from Hogwarts. </p>
<p>	Hermione glared at him. “You know that’s Severus’. You can’t even deny that.”</p>
<p>	“You didn’t just give us a place to stay, Hermione. You made sure that we’d enjoy aspects of this house.”</p>
<p>	Hermione let the tension out of her body. Nothing he said was untrue, he was just reading into things that had nothing to read into. He was making landmines out of anthills, and that was his choice. She crawled onto the bed and started to review spells again. He’d interrupt and that was fine. </p>
<p>	Draco went over to his dresser complete with a tiny dragon on the top center of his little mirror feature. He ran his hands over the wood, before turning to Hermione. “I don’t have a wand.”</p>
<p>	“We can get one the day after tomorrow.”</p>
<p>	“How can you be so confident that we’ll have that day without any complications?”</p>
<p>	Hermione blinked for a moment. “Because they don’t have the power to keep my husbands imprisoned.”</p>
<p>	“What?”</p>
<p>	“One of my closest friends holds the keys to their cells. One of my closest friends is the chosen one, the boy who lived. My husbands are all competent wizards in their own rights, and I am by all accounts the brightest witch of my generation. So, they could declare either of our husbands guilty. And I will blow up the damn court to get them out.”</p>
<p>	“They’ll come after you.”</p>
<p>	“Who will they send that can catch me? The order’s best chance is Harry, and he won’t agree to come after me. The government’s agents are mostly incompetent. And, we’ll escape from Britain to the continent.”</p>
<p>	“Lestrange’s extra property?”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded. “If either of you had asked me to make sure that you never went back that first conversation, I would have. I had the backup plans already set up, because I’m used to the government not being trustworthy.”</p>
<p>	Draco chuckled before making his way into the bed. “Most people would claim that only the guilty run.”</p>
<p>	“That ignores those that are charged guilty while being innocent who run to have a chance to break free. To us, George Washington was a traitor. To the Americans, he was the hero. Who is to say who is right and who is wrong? That is up to the individual.”</p>
<p>	“But some evils are too large,” Draco whispered. </p>
<p>	“Some evils are too grand for the world to not take notice, and yet many will still stand to the side and whisper about the injustice of it all. That is the price that bystanders pay, but I will not blame them. Fighting costs more than turning your head to the side. Fighting holds prices that no child should ever know about.”</p>
<p>	“But that’s when they called to you! Called to me,” he cried out.</p>
<p>	Hermione wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him close. “Yes, yes it was.” She blinked away the tears in her own eyes. “They called to young children to pay the price of their war. They called to children to fight the battles that they were unwilling to fight, and they pretended as if they weren’t hurting us to do so. They wanted pawns, and they got their wish. Too bad they never bothered to check the fine print.”</p>
<p>	“What do you mean?”</p>
<p>	“They made us soldiers, better than they ever were. They made us intelligent, in ways they never had to learn. They made us the perfect storm for a non-violent revolution. Just you wait. We won’t be alone when we stand up to those assholes.”</p>
<p>	“Promise?”</p>
<p>	“I swear it, Draco Malfoy.”</p>
<p>	Draco thought about just closing his eyes and trying to sleep. That would give him some deniability when he eventually gave into his desires and reached for Hermione. That way she wouldn’t have to worry about him and what he’d do. </p>
<p>	Instead, Hermione reached out and started running her hand through his hair. She played with some of the strands but mostly she just allowed the strands to fall apart under her fingers and then onto his scalp gently. </p>
<p>	“Also, you shouldn’t feel bad about being one of the few who got a lighter sentence. For one, you had a member of the golden trio standing in front of you during that trial, and almost no one actually wants to anger us right now. For two, you were underage when you took the mark, none of the rest of them could say that. Which means while I would argue they were still children when they were thrown in the war, they weren’t children when they chose a side.”</p>
<p>	Draco felt the tears fall from his eyes as he tried to shy away. “They weren’t any worse than me.”</p>
<p>	“No, they weren’t. The courts have appeals though, and Luna was planning on working to redeem every single person behind her bars, and then she’d fight to have them released back into the world. So, don’t worry about them. They have a kind and just warden, who will not leave them stranded with no path home.”</p>
<p>	“Is that enough?”</p>
<p>	Hermione brushed a hand against his cheek, collecting a few tears as she pondered the correct answer. “No,” she whispered, “but it is what I can manage at the moment, so that will just have to be good enough.”</p>
<p>	“Why you?”</p>
<p>	“Because no one else in this hell hole of a world was going to do anything to save them or me or anyone else other than themselves, so I took it upon myself to do it anyway.”</p>
<p>	“Again,” he muttered, “why?”</p>
<p>	Hermione let out a breath. “Because for a long time, I was just a muggle girl who had bouts of rage that shattered windows, who could pull books from shelves she couldn’t reach. Then, I was a witch, and I had power, power enough to stop this world from being so damn awful. And, I didn’t because I was a child and war came for me anyway. So, I’ll take the cost, so no one else ever will. No other child ever will, because I will fix it before they would have to.”</p>
<p>	Draco scooted closer to her on the bed and closed his eyes. “That’s why you’re a good person.”</p>
<p>	“All of the rest of them are too, they can live with themselves if they stay away from the issues that plague this world, and I cannot.”</p>
<p>	“Nope,” he said. The thoughts drained from his head, but he forced the words to come out anyway. “Because good people should always try to save others. I am painfully neutral. You and Severus are good. And, Rabastan probably could have been good once, but he long since lost his ability to do that without losing his mind.”</p>
<p>	“If you were neutral,” she whispered leaning down to press the words straight into his ear. “You would have fed Harry to the wolf that was Bellatrix in order to get back into good graces to survive. You gave us a fighting chance.”</p>
<p>	“You call her Bellatrix.”</p>
<p>	“Hmm. Yes, I think there are parts of us forever entwined now, after I survived her torture no matter how much I wanted to curl up into that hole and never come back out. Plus, I use her wand now.”</p>
<p>	“What?” His eyes came flying open and only her hands in his hair kept him from lunging out of the bed.</p>
<p>	“Stole it before the battle and convinced it to listen to me. I tried to get a new one a little while after the battle, but no other would listen correctly anymore. This one is mine until it breaks, now.”</p>
<p>	Draco dropped his jaw. “Do you realize how rare that is? How insane that is?”</p>
<p>	“Yes, but last time I checked it was about as rare as magic blessing a marriage, and we’ve done that in the last little bit too.”</p>
<p>	“Does it not panic you that we’re breaking pretty much all of the natural laws of the world?”</p>
<p>	Hermione shrugged. “I was raised muggle. I had already been breaking the natural laws of the world by being a witch. Everything else is relative now. I draw my line on being able to see the future as a normal witch, other than that, I’ll accept just about everything else.”</p>
<p>	Draco twisted until he was facing her with his head practically in her nightgown. “What was it like in a world without magic?”</p>
<p>	“Imagine a world where your parents cannot use magic to get things done. So, they’re always cleaning up the messes that you make as a child. You don’t have people able to fix the broken things when you run into the wrong table. You don’t have magic to fix your problems, you have to use something else.”</p>
<p>	“Sounds terrible.”</p>
<p>	“It wasn’t. It was so much more real than what this feels like now a days, but at the same time, I’m not surprised that those from magical households would believe that it was a horrible life, because none of you ever learned that magic wasn’t the norm.”</p>
<p>	“It is for wizards,” Draco retorted.</p>
<p>	“Are wizards in the majority? I must have missed that announcement.”</p>
<p>	Draco swallowed hard. “Could we flee there if the worst happens and the continent is willing to send us back to stand trial?”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded. “Yes, I have backup plans that include that if the worst happens and for whatever reason we aren’t going to make it in a magical world, than we’ll end up in the muggle world, it’ll take way more of an adjustment period, but we can do it.”</p>
<p>	Draco leaned into her slowly, before letting out a deep breath to gather his courage. “I’d prefer to never be dark again,” he whispered. </p>
<p>	“Last option,” she swore. With that she ran her hand through his hair until his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep. Her body was too keyed up. This would be the day that someone would try to attack them, this would be the day to try something, because she had two trials in one day, and she planned on making sure that the court agreed with her once more. </p>
<p>	Morning came far too quickly according to Draco. But, they both put on the fancy robes that they owned. Draco knew that he would be in the audience, because having him argue for their husband wouldn’t be likely to increase their odds of getting him out. </p>
<p>	Hermione strapped a dagger to her forearm on top of her wand holster, before shrugging on the long sleeves, ignoring Draco’s stare. </p>
<p>	“Hermione?”</p>
<p>	“Hmm.”</p>
<p>	“A dagger,” he said.</p>
<p>	“A good precaution. Wizards often plan for the idea of their opponent coming after them with spells, if they deflect the first attack. For some reason, they never seem to think about what happens when I pull a dagger out and stab them.”</p>
<p>	“Because that’s not what proper wizarding etiquette would allow.” </p>
<p>	“Fuck proper,” she stated with a raised eyebrow.</p>
<p>	“Maybe don’t say that in court,” he suggested with a teasing tone, “we do want our husband to be out of bars, not joining him behind them.”</p>
<p>	Hermione offered up her arm, and they flooed to the ministry. No more jokes would help either of them prepare, and she wasn’t sure what Severus was going to look like after another week in prison. He hadn’t ever been behind bars before, thanks to Dumbledore’s decision to support him last minute. </p>
<p>	Her feet walked with confidence that even Draco struggled to match. She looked every bit the pureblood witch that she wasn’t. And, she had the support of most of the new government too. This time she waved at the new employees who glittered the room.</p>
<p>	Ron pushed his way in front of them. “Hermione.”</p>
<p>	“Ron, nice to see you,” she murmured. Demure, but nothing that could be taken against her and potentially brought up in court. </p>
<p>	“I was hoping to convince you to sit out of court,” he said loud enough for his voice to be heard across all of the room.</p>
<p>	“For Severus’ trial, I thought you agreed with Dumbledore’s assessment, which was that he was the reason we won. That he was a spy, that did awful things, so that the rest of us could live in relative peace.”</p>
<p>	Ron’s lips twisted into a snarl, but he remained calm enough to not lunge forward. “If you want to defend the greasy git, that’s your business. I wouldn’t, I’d let the courts make their own decisions, since he did do awful things, but I wouldn’t stand against those with fainter hearts. No, I encourage you not to stand for Rabastan Lestrange.”</p>
<p>	“My husband?” she asked softly, drawing attention to herself once more, but without offering a single word about his choice of words concerning her other husband. She could take care of that privately later, after all she had kept him safe for years, she could find him in most wards without issue. </p>
<p>	“You always were a bleeding heart, Mione.” He laughed as if that was a great quip, not a private insult. “You used to say that you were against people being able to claim mind control to get out of just punishment, I never thought you’d use the argument yourself.”</p>
<p>	“I agree, people shouldn’t claim that. If they were, however, they should prove it. There are simple ways to do so. Veritaserum for one, and a pensieve as well.”</p>
<p>	“Do you plan on using those? You know the court doesn’t usually allow for such expensive tools, especially when the case is rather clear cut.”</p>
<p>	Hermione blinked. “Ron, did they not tell you? I am the future Lady Malfoy, I am the Lady Prince, the Lady Lestrange, and the Lady Black. I don’t need the court to pay, I am paying for all of my husband’s trial expenses as their defense. As is my right.”</p>
<p>	“You can’t just use their money.”</p>
<p>	Draco placed a hand on her arm to stop her from trying to spit on him for that blatant lie. He really did not want to end up with her being dragged in for assault on this day, because he was not prepared to stand in court. He would try his best, but he’d stumble and that wouldn’t look good. “She is welcome to any of mine,” he said.</p>
<p>	Ron turned to focus on him for the first time. “Surely, you don’t need all three husbands free, Mione. That might just be greedy.”</p>
<p>	Hermione closed her eyes and allowed Draco’s hold on her to keep her from the edge of just cursing him again. “I do not find fighting for the rights of people to be an injustice, and I feel for you, if you do.”</p>
<p>	“We could have been married one day,” he called as she walked away. </p>
<p>	“If magic was willing to bless my union without you, then magic has already spoken that the match wouldn’t have been right for me, not forever.”</p>
<p>	Draco grinned. “That is the one good thing about our marriage. We don’t ever have to doubt that we can be happy together, the force that all of us believe in has already told us that we will.”<br/>	Lord Selwyn walked by at just that moment, and he met Hermione’s eyes. “I do not understand why magic felt the need to bless the four of you.”</p>
<p>	“Neither do I, my lord,” Hermione offered. </p>
<p>	Draco kept that huge grin on his face, pretending for just a moment that they were a happy couple deeply in love and that magic blessed them was a sign from the universe more than just a saving grace for a last ditch effort at survival. “I think it is because we all deserved something bright after what we went through to get here.”</p>
<p>	“Perhaps, my dearest. Perhaps,” Hermione replied. She nodded to Lord Selwyn. “Will you be on either trial today?”</p>
<p>	“No, and I am grateful. Watching you unsettle my niece was not the most pleasurable position to be in.”</p>
<p>	“No need. I am not deliberately trying to attack her, she just happens to be the prosecution for the case that I must destroy.” With that she led them off to court. She was hopeful that she would be able to see Severus for a minute before needing to intervene in something.</p>
<p>	Indeed, the court wasn’t yet ready for session as they slipped in. She moved over to Severus and cupped his face gently. “Are you alright?” she whispered.</p>
<p>	“Luna was able to get me a private cell as they were going to try to kill me if she didn’t. I’d be more worried for Rabastan.”</p>
<p>	“Yes, well, I can’t reach him right now. I can reach you.”</p>
<p>	“Compassion, Ms. Granger. For shame. I thought I taught you better than to show weakness like that.”</p>
<p>	Hermione reached forward and rested her hand on his shoulder. Human contact wasn’t one of the simple necessities for better behavior that Luna had come up with a plan for yet. “You taught me a great many things, Severus Snape, but I have not once taken personality lessons from a spy. I have at least a little more common sense than that.”</p>
<p>	Severus glanced over to where the prosecution was huddling over her desk with a large stack of papers. “She’s going to try to throw you off your game. She was a Slytherin, and she wants the rest of us to suffer in a prison cell for the rest of our lives.”</p>
<p>	Hermione wrinkled her nose and gave him a half-glare. “I’d like to see her try. Not to mention, that I’ve got more testimony than anyone.”</p>
<p>	“Mr. Longbottom is in court, and even you can’t tell me that his word won’t balance out quite a few of yours.”</p>
<p>	Hermione laughed. “Did you notice where Draco sat?”</p>
<p>	“He’s here?” Severus asked a bare hint of hope in his voice. </p>
<p>	“Of course, he is. For that matter, I’m sure the two of you are going to try to stubbornly drag yourselves to Rabastan’s trial, but I can take care of it. And Neville is sitting right next to him, he’s here to speak on your behalf.”</p>
<p>	“Why on Earth would he do that? I am his greatest fear, over Bellatrix, over Voldemort, and over a good number of other things. He shouldn’t defend me, he should despise me.”</p>
<p>	Hermione smiled at him gently. “Because you are not alone, Severus. Because the order knows just how much pain you suffered to keep us informed, and we do not take those with a grain of salt. Because, Neville saw you try to keep the youngest children from pain, he watched you try to keep all of them from death’s doorstep, when others would have let them burn.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p>	“You incorrectly believe me to be a good man. I joined willingly.”</p>
<p>	“You paid your dues, the second you risked your life for over a decade to keep the rest of us safe.”</p>
<p>	“Mistress Granger, a word if you don’t mind,” Lord Abbot said as he walked in, instead of going directly to his seat.</p>
<p>	Hermione gave him a small half bow and walked over to his side. “My lord?”</p>
<p>	“I wish to inform you that all members of the jury have watched the penisive memories. We all know that he was a spy, and most of us already think that he was arrested was a tragedy.”</p>
<p>	“Why tell me?”</p>
<p>	“Because Madame Selwyn knows this as well, and no doubt she’s going to try to weasel him into a host of charges that will be difficult to be able to extend under the branch of spying, and I will have to hear her out, and I don’t know what that will do to the mentality of those of us on his side. And, you deserved to know the same as your opponent.”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded. “I appreciate the concern, but I always knew that she wouldn’t pull the death eater charge up on Master Snape. I have a good amount of counter points, for just about everything that she could ever say.”</p>
<p>	“I don’t mean to be doubtful, but even I know that some of his choices weren’t the right ones.”</p>
<p>	“Neither were most of mine. That’s the problem with trying to make choices, Lord Abbot. You never get to know what the consequence is. You make them with the information you have on hand, and things get so much fuzzier later until you don’t recall how it was you ended up where you were.”</p>
<p>	“You saved the wizarding world,” he stated.</p>
<p>	“And do to so, my parents will never know that they had a daughter, let alone know that she was a hero. I cursed a schoolgirl to keep my friends safe, and now for the rest of that girl’s life, she will be scarred. I made the choices for all the right reasons, and I saved many, but that doesn’t make my actions good, they make them necessary.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot reached out and placed a hand on her shoulder. “They’ll never regain their memories.”</p>
<p>	“If there was something left to find, the death eaters could have found them eventually, and I was unwilling to accept that risk.”</p>
<p>	Lady Flint walked over to them. “We must begin, before the prosecution believes that the jury is biased at the start. I do not particularly want to delay this trial any further.”</p>
<p>	With that, Hermione moved to stand before Severus in the same position that she took for Draco. Any comments directed at him would have to come through her. That was the simple means she had to make sure that they wouldn’t be unfairly tried. </p>
<p>	Madame Selwyn glared at her before turning her attention to Lord Abbot.</p>
<p>	“Let the trial of Order member Severus Snape commence. What are the charges brought forward?”</p>
<p>	“Accessory to murder, torture, theft, and destruction of property. The prosecution acknowledges that many crimes were necessary to avoid breaking cover over being a spy, but surely there were ways of going about things that did not lead Mr. Snape to a life of crime such as this.”</p>
<p>	“Master Snape,” Hermione corrected without pause. The court would not have someone mislabeled, and Hermione was sick of people doubting the potion master when he could beat any one of them as long as he had a decent lab and stockroom. </p>
<p>	“Apologies, Master Snape. We have on numerous occasions that he did not provide evidence of the attacks before they occurred leading to the deaths of many. We would like for Master Snape to face charges for his negligence that resulted in these people dying. The list in my hand consists of the 74 victims that we find Master Snape to be party too.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot raised an eyebrow. Clearly unhappy with the current direction that the trial was leading to, but he would see it through as was his job. “The defense’s response.”</p>
<p>	Hermione barely glanced over at the list that Madame Selwyn was holding. “I cannot speak for all 74 victims individually. That would keep us here all day. We’d never even get to the rest of the list of crimes that the prosecution means to bring against him, because I would have to both consult my client and the list each time. That seems ridiculous by far.”</p>
<p>	She kept her face carefully blank. “However, I will point out that while he was a member of the inner circle, that does not mean that he had knowledge of everything that would happen. He couldn’t possibly know when one of the outer circle members was choosing to bring a victim to try to please Tom Riddle, he couldn’t possibly intervene in the middle of a meeting of death eaters unless you want to claim that jeopardizing his position as a spy was worth each individual person. The punishment for not being able to hear about these deaths ahead of time was to have to watch them die in horrendous ways, but be unable to intervene. A form of torture itself,” she explained. </p>
<p>	“Would you feel the same, Mistress Granger, if it had been your muggleborn parents on the table instead of Hillary Bailey’s?”</p>
<p>	“Yes, unfortunate as it would be. I would not lay blame on Severus Snape’s feet for the death of my parents. I would blame Tom Riddle for making them targets. I would blame whichever death eater went and found them for dragging them before a maniac who wouldn’t hesitate to kill them. And I would blame myself for not taking precautions to keep them safe. But, I would not blame the spy who would have had to have my face burned into his mind while he watched them suffer, knowing that he wanted to stop the crime, but that if he did, then the war would be lost, that hundreds of others would die before he could save them instead of 74.”</p>
<p>	Hermione knew there were tears in her eyes. And she didn’t bother hiding it from the court. They all knew she could, just as she did, but the emotion made her real. The emotion made it possible for them to see her as she was. A young child defending her husband on trial from crimes that were not his own. </p>
<p>	Lord Abbot closed the wards around them and there was a large discussion. One person seemed adamant as his hands kept hitting the wooden bench as he argued. </p>
<p>	Finally, the wards came down, and Lady Flint spoke. “We have reached the decision that Severus Snape is not the one that should be charged for these deaths. Most of the ones that should be blamed are dead, and we hope that knowledge brings the victim’s families some amount of peace.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn bit down a hiss of anger. “He witnessed not just victims from the other side from torture, but also these supposed friends within the Dark Lord’s circle. Surely, he could have intervened.”<br/>	Severus flinched in his seat. Not just enough to draw Hermione’s attention, but that of the whole court. He seemed to shake in his seat away from the rune on his forearm cuff that tied him to not try to injure him.</p>
<p>	“You may speak, Master Snape,” Lord Gaunt offered. </p>
<p>	“I would ask that the prosecution refrain from calling all of the death eaters my friends, I would not call them that. The few that I would still label as friends, I did attempt to deflect torture from to the best of my ability. But most of the time, that would mean that the torture that was meant for them ended up going to me.”</p>
<p>	Hermione clinched her hand into a fist to avoid going over to the other stand and throwing a punch. But that wouldn’t help anyone’s situation, except perhaps making sure Draco knew that he wasn’t the only one that Hermione would punch for doing such things. Instead, she took a deep breath. “Not to mention, the torture had the same effect as the killings. No one knew when Tom Riddle was going to decide that someone needed to be tortured. That was the consequence of being a madman. No one knew how to stop him from being evil.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn offered a sick smile over towards Hermione. “But, surely, we should think about the fact that he was willing to let the Dark Lord torture people, when he just admitted that he could take that punishment himself. He chose not to. Surely, that is in fact compliance with the evil that was being done.”</p>
<p>	Hermione closed her eyes. “Have you ever been under the torture spell, Madame Selwyn, or any of the members of the jury?”</p>
<p>	Heads shook in response. No one in the audience dared to speak either, although Hermione knew that Draco at the very least had at some point had that happen, because being underage didn’t matter to people like the Dark Lord. </p>
<p>	Hermione opened her eyes. “It feels as though every nerve in your body has been lit on fire. It is like your lungs are drowning, even though you can still breathe. At first all you can do it scream, scream until your throat is raw and that is real. That will stay even once the curse is lifted. Then, you are silent. Your body still fights to get away from the pain, but the pain is direct. It is on the stimulus nerves, and there is no way for you to escape. There is no exit from the pain, you are at the complete mercy of whoever casts the spell.”</p>
<p>	She reached down and pushed down the sleeve of her shirt, so the silky white trails of spirals across her arm can be seen. The after effect of the curse. “I’ve been tortured multiple times. The first was during the war by Bellatrix. The second was in place of each and every one of my husbands to keep them from a death more horrendous than the mere four minutes of torture that I dealt with to keep them alive for these trials. I am not telling you this to get sympathy or to make you see my pain. I am telling you this, so that you understand when I tell you. If the options are between facing that curse or remaining silent as someone else does, no one who has ever experienced the curse will ever choose the former, unless they love that person more than life itself.”</p>
<p>	“But you did,” Selwyn countered. </p>
<p>	“No, I didn’t. My choice wasn’t between the torture curse and the torture curse. My choice was between watching people die from the torture curse, knowing that their pain won’t stop no matter what I do, until their hearts stop beating or being tortured under that spell for four minutes, when I knew that I had survived upwards of ten minutes once.”</p>
<p>	Lord Goyle stood suddenly. His eyes ran across the room before settling on Hermione. “I would like to hear from someone who is not a death eater or their wife who has suffered that spell, before we try to make a decision.”</p>
<p>	Neville stood from the crowd and glared at the man. “Unfortunately, you cannot. Because the only other people who have survived extended periods from that curse that were not trained for it and built up the resistance, are my parents, who still have yet to regain any form of brain function after the amount of torture they went through. There is no one else to speak. The people who survived stand before you speaking.”</p>
<p>	Hermione bit down her smile, because of course Neville would stand for her even before when she actually asked him to stand for her. “My lords, I know that right now, you want unbiased proof. And I understand that desire. That way you can make sure that you aren’t giving anyone the benefit of the doubt when that would be atrocious. But, that cannot always happen. This world is not fair, much as we might wish it to be otherwise.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn tossed a glare to Hermione. “Surely, this esteemed body is not considering that fear of consequence is a good enough reason to fail to do the right thing.”</p>
<p>	“Apologies, Madame Selwyn, I was not aware that you participated in the war,” Hermione snapped. “I will welcome your testimony on behalf of doing the right thing to do through fear, the second you tell me exactly what position you were in during the war.”</p>
<p>	“I did not fight in the war.”</p>
<p>	“Then do not lecture those of us who did on the basis of not acting in our best interest to avoid our fears when you could not do the same. Especially when your fears were likely never on a scale of what I went through. What anyone who went to Hogwarts with my year felt.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot banged his hand against the table to gain the attention of the court once more. “Enough, the chamber will debate these charges. Please, wait for our decision before making any more barbs at each other.”</p>
<p>	As the wards go up, Selwyn turned to Hermione with a glare full of rage. “How dare you compare the two of us?”</p>
<p>	“You’re right. It is an insult to my husband to compare him to the likes of you.”</p>
<p>	Severus snorted, finally unable to keep his emotions hidden while the jury was busy with their determination. “Hermione, you do not have to defend me. I have faced much worse accusations from people that I cared about much more.”</p>
<p>	“You are my husband. An insult against you is an insult against me. Plus, it is about damn time that someone bothered to care enough to defend you. That should have been Dumbledore’s job, but we all know my opinions on that man.”</p>
<p>	“That he should face a trial with just as much anger as Tom’s.”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded. </p>
<p>	Lady Flint once more lowered the shields and she stared at both people standing. “The decision was debated heavily. Neither side managed to win a complete vote, nor were we able to come to a concrete decision. Thus, it has been determined that the majority will win this vote. The majority agreed that in this case, no one has the right to claim his actions were criminal, but whether you wish to blame him for these actions is up to individuals. If you would rather not be associated with him, he cannot bring you to this court for justice. However, I would hazard a warning for those listening to this trial, if you choose not to speak to Severus Snape, you should probably also plan to never talk to Hermione Granger or Draco Malfoy.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn inclined her head. “The next charge would be about the terrorization of students while a professor at Hogwarts.”</p>
<p>	Hermione shook her head. “Actions taken to ensure that should anyone attempt to claim that he was not doing his loyal job to Tom Riddle, that they would not be able to find any evidence. Again, while in a better world we would not need to weigh the lives of those spared by his actions as a spy against the vulnerability of children, in this one we do. And we cannot honestly claim that we’d rather our children be dead because Tom Riddle won the war, than we’d rather our children be mentally scarred because that one professor was mean to them.”</p>
<p>	“I have a record here, that there was a student whose Bogart was Professor Snape, surely you will not claim that should be ignored.”</p>
<p>	“That is a serious accusation,” Lord Abbot pointed out.</p>
<p>	“Indeed,” Hermione said. “Which is why that student is in the audience here today. Neville?”</p>
<p>	“Lords and Ladies, my name is Neville Longbottom. I regret to inform all of you that the bogart in question was mine.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn grinned triumphant at long last. “Now, it is fair to say that your parents were tortured into brain death by Bellatrix Lestrange, but your greatest fear was still Severus Snape.”</p>
<p>	“At age 13, yes.”</p>
<p>	“What?”</p>
<p>	“When I was 13, I didn’t really have any reason to fear Bellatrix Lestrange. She was the evil woman who hurt my parents, but she was behind bars. There was no way that she could escape, the Dark Lord was dead, and my best friends were the bushy haired genius, the boy who lived, and a firecracker of a Weasley daughter. I didn’t need to fear Bellatrix, but I had reason to be scared of the professor that didn’t like Gryffindors in a class that I couldn’t figure out the instructions for.”</p>
<p>	Hermione grinned over at Selwyn. The woman never did learn not to challenge someone like Hermione Granger. There was no winning a battle when your opponent had every move matched play for play. “Would you say, Mr. Longbottom, that you still fear Severus Snape?”</p>
<p>	“No. After the final year at Hogwarts I doubt any of the students old enough to realize what he did could ever be afraid of Master Snape. He is the reason that I am still standing before you breathing. He is the reason that the younger children did not go home with marks on their skin like Mrs. Granger. He is the one who fought when no one else could, and he did that by being a spy. He did that by taking the judgment from people like you every day.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot turned to put up the wards, but Neville stopped him with another intake of breath. “I would also like to claim,” Neville said, “that I never allowed that report to be made. Those charges are not relevant to this case, because I did not, nor do I ever plan to bring Severus Snape up on what happened back then. The prosecution has no right to use my trauma as a reason to persecute an innocent man without my permission.”</p>
<p>	“Madame Selwyn, how did you come about these files?”</p>
<p>	“They were among the notes taken by Remus Lupin in his class.”</p>
<p>	“Then there was no charge laid for these supposed crimes?”</p>
<p>	“Not directly, but I felt the intent was more important.”</p>
<p>	“That is not for you to decide,” Lady Flint snarled. “These charges are dropped and if you waste this court’s time with any further lies to try to push for Severus Snape to be charged when he has been nothing but cooperative, then we will try you as slandering a man of high status, and that of his family.”</p>
<p>	“And before you ask,” Hermione added, “I will support these charges fully.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn swallowed hard. “The last point the prosecution would like to make is that Severus Snape willingly joined the death eaters. He did not become a spy because of the government, but because of his own faulty choices.”</p>
<p>	“Severus Snape was a child who was bullied constantly by his peers. The people he trusted refused to help him, is it any surprise that he turned to the people who offered protection and magic and money? They didn’t start off with threats of murder. For a while, it looked like Tom Riddle would be a politician. A brilliant player in the field that would have change the world, probably for the worse, but he would have done it legally. Who wouldn’t join a charismatic man who offers you safety?”</p>
<p>	“So, the defense is that we should all have become death eaters?”</p>
<p>	“No. Most of us didn’t live in the world that Severus Snape did. I believe Lord Goyle was in Hogwarts at the same time, perhaps he could shed his opinion,” Hermione murmured. </p>
<p>	“There were times when I saw Severus being put into danger that I really thought his body was going to be added to the body count of Hogwarts. The Gryffindor boys made excuses for their attempts at murder and other crimes. Then, Severus found Lucius Malfoy, and the Lestrange twins. They kept him safe, and they gave him a way to be more than what he was. I would argue that the child I knew in Hogwarts was innocent,” Goyle stated.</p>
<p>	“Excuse me, what?”</p>
<p>	“Severus Snape didn’t have anyone else to turn to. It is a miracle that he didn’t become indoctrinated enough to be a full death eater, and if that had happened, then we’d all be dead.” His eyes burned. “And before you start questioning me, Madame Selwyn, I hate Mistress Granger and at least one of her husbands, but I know that without Severus Snape, I would have buried more than just a child.”</p>
<p>	Hermione bowed to Lord Goyle. “If there was a way to change the fate of the world that we went through, I would.”</p>
<p>	“Not if meant the Dark Lord winning,” Lord Goyle stated.</p>
<p>	“True.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot glanced at Lord Goyle. “For the sake of my own curiosity and to know why this keeps coming up, what did happen?”</p>
<p>	Hermione stepped forward. “The room of requirement held one of Tom Riddle’s horcruxes. They had to be destroyed for him to be mortal when we killed him. We had to think fast, and harshly to try to get rid of that before Harry went up against him. Draco, Vincent, and Gregory were in there with us. Feindfyre would destroy it, so I lit the room up. Draco was on Ron’s broom. I managed to grab Vincent on my way out. But, I couldn’t find Gregory. I allowed him to burn so that Tom Riddle would die. Lord Goyle is welcome to hate me for that for as long as he wishes.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn grinned. “If you wish Lord Goyle we could try her right here next to her husband?”</p>
<p>	“She’d win. She made the right choice, I just wish it didn’t hurt so damn much.”</p>
<p>	Hermione inclined her head. “Other worlds, and all that.”</p>
<p>	“Other worlds, this charge doesn’t work either, Madame Selwyn. That’s asking to punish someone for actions they weren’t yet aware of.”</p>
<p>	Lord Abbot nodded. “Severus Snape, you are found not guilty.”</p>
<p>	Selwyn ran out of the room, and Hermione barely contained her eyeroll. She stayed right where she was until no one was left except her, Severus, and Draco.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Rabastan's trial</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>This time Rabastan gets to have his day in the spotlight. Only this time the case isn't settled by random laws, it is settled by Hermione deciding that she's had enough.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Draco stood and walked around until he could stand before Severus. “I am so happy to be able to see you again.”</p><p>	“I would say the feeling is mutual, but I much preferred the fact that you weren’t in those cells anymore.”</p><p>	Hermione raised her eyes. “Draco, could you be a dear and watch for others coming in?”</p><p>	“Why?”</p><p>	“Because I don’t want to wait for Luna, which means I’m going to break the rune without her.”</p><p>	“Which is a crime,” Draco finished. He sighed. “Even once I’ve been pardoned for crimes committed during a war, I can’t get rid of criminals in my life.”</p><p>	“Don’t lie, you were happy when I did it for you,” she teased right back. Her hands cupped Severus’s arm around where the cuff was, and she found her magic buried among the rune. And, she yanked it right back out. No longer allowing her magic to be a part of holding him back. The cuff fell to the ground. </p><p>	Luna pushed open the door and accioed the cuff with a blank stare at Hermione. “This would be so much easier if you weren’t messing with things.”</p><p>	“As if you’d even have this position if I wasn’t messing with stuff.”</p><p>	“Oh, I never said I’d be happy with the situation, just that it would be easier on us all.”</p><p>	Draco froze unsure of what to do when confronted with one of Hermione’s friends who was technically now in charge of their fates.</p><p>	Luna grinned over at Draco. “Don’t worry. I knew when she did it for you too. Professor Snape, are you feeling alright? I couldn’t very well ask that as your warden, but as I am no longer that, I feel the need to check.”</p><p>	“Little weak, very tired, and the day is not over yet.”</p><p>	“The day is never over for people like us,” Luna said. “Rabastan is going to be way more problematic, because Ron has been stirring up so much drama.”</p><p>	Hermione winked. “That’s alright. I’ve been pushing the prosecution, she’s going to say something that allows me to challenge her to a duel right there in the courthouse, and I will win. Then, I’ll be to more easily point out that I have the qualifications to prove his word is true.”</p><p>	“Of that I have no doubt,” Luna drawled. “No, I mean Ron’s going to have a mob waiting to try to attack him while he’s on your arm leaving the place.”</p><p>	“Shit.”</p><p>	Draco glanced at Hermione. “You promised,” he murmured.</p><p>	“Rabastan is mine, Luna. I will actually harm Ron Weasley if it comes to that.”</p><p>	“Again, I have no doubts. But, I’m going to try to take care of it. Just, promise me that you aren’t going to fall into a trap.”</p><p>	“Never have.”</p><p>	“You’re married because of a curse from Tom Riddle.”</p><p>	“Less of a trap, more of a situation that needed a choice.”</p><p>	Severus pushed himself up. “Can we get to the trial, please?”</p><p>	Hermione wrapped an arm around his, so that she was holding him in a way that if his strength failed, she could catch him without needing any magic. Then, she let out a breath. “Of course, my husband. Do try not to antagonize anyone from here to there.”</p><p>	“Would that matter?”</p><p>	“Hermione just doesn’t want to get into three duels in one day,” Luna explained. </p><p>	Draco huffed. </p><p>	Luna tapped his cheek on her way out of the room. “I may be nutty, Malfoy, but I’m also the craziest smartest person you’ve ever known.”</p><p>	Severus laughed although that caused him to start coughing. “That girl would destroy almost every potion she made in my class, but then she’d hand me an essay of what she was trying to do. She always had a reason that made some sense for her choices.”</p><p>	“Ah, but have you met her fantastical beasts?”</p><p>	“Does your patronus count, my wife?”</p><p>	Hermione laughed. “Given it is based off one that I saw as a child, I will say yes.”</p><p>	“Then, I’ve met at least one of her fantastical beasts.”</p><p>	Hermione led them out of the courtroom with a laugh, which neither of them got until they realized that no one bothered to stop them with Hermione seeming happy. No one wanted to get in the way of her happiness when they actively knew that it was her happiness on the line. That was one of the more fantastic portions of being one of the main people who took down the dark lord in their free time while completing classes.</p><p>	Severus stumbled halfway through the way. He had been in a prison cell for way too long.</p><p>	Hermione tucked them into a small corner and sent a nonverbal mufflato. Then, she unwound Severus and leaned him against the wall. “You won’t make it through another trial like this.”</p><p>	“He’s my husband. He’s my closest friend, I can’t just leave him to face the trial with people hating him alone. I can’t,” Severus spat out.</p><p>	Hermione ran her tongue over her teeth before trying to find the correct way to word her next statement. “You won’t. You’re leaving him to me, and you’re trusting that I will drag him home.”</p><p>	“What if you can’t? What if your plan fails, and they still lock him away from me, and I’m not there to wish him well?”</p><p>	Draco glanced at Hermione before realizing that no one could hear them, and he dropped his tension. “Let me take you home, Severus. I promise that Hermione will bring Rabastan home with her. I promise this without any strings and with no hesitation.”</p><p>	“You can’t predict the damn jury.”</p><p>	“He’s not telling you that, you damned bloody fool. He’s telling you that if the jury tries to prosecute any of my husbands, I’m ripping them to pieces and leaving the carcasses for the crows. He’s telling you that I’m done playing nice. Playing nice got me nothing and no one, it got me tortured on a ballroom floor in front of my future father-in-law.”</p><p>	Severus flinched back at the anger in her voice, but for once Hermione wasn’t going to back down and apologize for causing fear in someone.</p><p>	“Because trust this much Severus Snape, I will not allow another innocent to burn under the name of Tom Riddle, if I have to become the next bloody dark lord, then so be it. At least I know, I won’t drag children into my war. I might burn down the world, but I’ll let the children be whole before the flames take them.”</p><p>	Theo slipped in behind them and wrapped an arm around Hermione’s waist. “Sweetheart, I can’t hear you, but your magic is slipping, and you look ready to commit murder. You need to rein it in a little bit.”</p><p>	Hermione took in a deep breath. Then another, and another.</p><p>	Draco raised an eyebrow at Theo, but Theo doesn’t spare him a second glance. </p><p>	“Squeeze my arm if you’re good, so I can go back to playing a good politician’s son and fetching coffee for the higher ups.”</p><p>	Hermione reached up and squeezed his arm. She waited before turning back to Severus. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have directed my anger at you. You are not the cause of my current frustration, and you don’t deserve to have my rage.”</p><p>	“You would burn down the world for a bunch of husbands that you didn’t even want,” he asked.</p><p>	Hermione shrugged. “You’re mine, and I am so sick and tired of the world trying to take the things I care about even in the abstract away from me, so yes.”</p><p>	Draco stepped forward and dropped his chin down on Severus’ shoulder. “Let me take you home. Let Hermione not have to worry about coming up with a plan that keeps both of us safe, when one of us can’t bare the thought of raising his wand to another ever again and the other isn’t at the top of his strength. Let Hermione handle the rest of this.”</p><p>	“Please,” Hermione added.</p><p>	Severus sighed. “If you fail, I will haunt you for the rest of your life. There will not be any shelter that you can seek that will protect you from the way that I will come for you.”</p><p>	“If I fail, then I am dead. You can still give me hell for it once you reach me, but I’d prefer if you didn’t immediately follow.”</p><p>	Draco tossed her an unamused glare. “You promised,” he reminded her.</p><p>	“I make no plans to come home to you in a coffin, my dearest. I plan on bringing home our other husband.”</p><p>	Severus looked down. “He deserved so much more than the life he was given. He wasn’t like me, he didn’t join willingly, and by the time that he knew, there was too many things binding him to the path.”</p><p>	“I know,” Hermione whispered. “So, let me save him.”</p><p>	He nodded, and Hermione dropped the spell. She leaned into Draco’s space and hugged him. “I’ll see you at home.”</p><p>	She walked off without looking back, but she knew that Blaise was going to pop in at her side in a couple of seconds. </p><p>	Sure enough, Blaise’s hand wrapped around her arm in a deadly lock and pulled her to the side. He pushed a Pepper up potion into her hand. “You need it. You didn’t sleep last night, and Severus’ trial was a mess.”</p><p>	She downed the potion and swallowed past the horrible taste. She stared at him for a long moment. “We won.”</p><p>	“You also had to defend your husband in some of the most horrendous acts that even you believe that he deserved to be punished for, it’s just that you believe he had suffered enough. You had to stand before them and admit that, I know that hurt you, so don’t bother trying to deny it.”</p><p>	“Yeah, well, he’s mine.”</p><p>	Blaise shook his head. “Just because you want to be happy doesn’t mean that you should have to deal with all of this.”</p><p>	“World will never be fair, not unless we start making it fair, but I really don’t want to deal with that before I free my last husband and preferably have something of a plan for the rest of our lives, because I could use a little less drama.”</p><p>	Blaise sighed. “Do try not to get yourself killed.”</p><p>	“I haven’t died yet.”</p><p>	“Not through the lack of trying, your enemies were just a little too focused on the other one to ever bother to take out the smartest player on the board. They won’t make the same mistake twice, and I really like you living.”</p><p>	Hermione smiled and leaned up to press a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t worry. That’s for Theo to do. Trust Luna’s judgement, I haven’t fallen too far yet.”</p><p>	Blaise turned his head to press a kiss to her cheek back. “I will try.”</p><p>	Hermione walked out of his embrace and into the court. She wasn’t really surprised to see that the crowd was much smaller than it was for either Draco or Severus. Most people didn’t think there was any chance of him walking not after he had already gone to Azkaban for his crimes once. </p><p>	She did tilt her head when she saw Neville in the crowd once more.</p><p>	He offered her a slight shrug but didn’t say anything. She chose to ignore that for now, she trusted that he wouldn’t just throw her under the bus without any warning, so he was probably just spectating.</p><p>	Rabastan looked up the moment that she walked in, but he didn’t make any move towards her.</p><p>	Hermione moved over to his side, and she handed him a bottle of water. She carried a few in her bag, and while Severus had looked decent in the courtroom, Rabastan had parched lips and droops under his eyes.</p><p>	He took a small sip of the water. “Are you watching my trial?”</p><p>	Hermione raised an eyebrow. “No, I’m defending you at your trial.”</p><p>	“You shouldn’t. I committed crimes, and you shouldn’t be torn down because of my actions, not when you didn’t have to marry me, or spare me from death. You’ve done way more than necessary.”</p><p>	“The day that I stop fighting for the things I feel are right, will be the day that you will bury me in a shallow grave. I fought for house elf rights in Hogwarts while people were already making fun of me for being an outcast in this world. I’ve never done the normal reaction to things like that.”</p><p>	“I’m not innocent.”</p><p>	“Did you choose to take the dark mark?”</p><p>	“No,” he said with a bitter tone.</p><p>	“Did you choose to kill anyone?”</p><p>	“No.”</p><p>	“Did you want to torture people?”</p><p>	“No.”</p><p>	“Then, my husband, much as you might want to have me leave here, to not be further indebted to me for saving you from not only death, but also jail, there is no where else that I could be. I will not let innocents be placed within that jail just because the anger is building in the public. If I do, then I am no better than those evils who came before. The second we start allowing even a small bit of the darkness into our lives, is the moment that we lose,” she whispered firmly.</p><p>	Rabastan sighed. Then, he jerked his head towards where the judges would sit, the lords and ladies of the noble society of wizards that he was once part of. “They won’t see it that way.”</p><p>	“That is not the only way to win a trial,” she retorted.</p><p>	Rabastan glanced back behind him and nodded. “You got Draco to leave so that you could do this without him ever knowing, you plan on wiping the floor with the opposition this time.”</p><p>	“She got mouthy in the other trials, without having protests to guide her. All she has to do is insinuate something just far enough that I can call her on it and call a duel. Then, you are home-free because she has no training, and while I may not be formally trained, I did live through a war.”</p><p>	He shook his head. “If you lose, I will convince Severus to slap you when you come visit me behind bars.”</p><p>	Hermione huffed. “You don’t have faith in me after everything I’ve done for you.”</p><p>	“Faith in your ability to be good, without question. Faith in your ability to save me further than you already have, skeptical.”</p><p>	Hermione raised an eyebrow. “Let me prove it.”</p><p>	Rabastan nodded. </p><p>	Then, Ron Weasley walked through the door with a whole bunch of protesters and led them straight into the audience. He offered Hermione a sick type of smile. “Hello, Mione, I really thought you wouldn’t be here still.”</p><p>	Hermione swallowed hard. She reminded herself that he was feeling betrayed that she felt more betrayed by his destruction of her trust, than she felt betrayed by the actions of a school yard bully, or a spy, or even a death eater under mind control. “Where else would I be except defending my husband?”</p><p>	“A death eater, I know that Kingsley pressured you into fixing his problems and marrying his prisoners to save them, but surely you haven’t forgotten who they are.”</p><p>	Hermione blinked. “I have never claimed to know them very well. After all, only one of them was in our class and the others may have been around me, but I didn’t really get the opportunity to find out about them. Also, you were there when the spy for the order, who got Harry the last information he needed to win the war, and my husband, told us that Rabastan never had a clear mind when doing any actions as a death eater. Are you saying that you have doubts about Severus Snape?”</p><p>	Neville tilted his head to the side. “Of course not, Hermione. Ron wouldn’t be nearly stupid enough to say that in public to his lady wife,” he interjected.</p><p>	Ron turned red but took a seat. </p><p>	Hermione huffed under her breath. At this rate, she wasn’t going to have to just take down Selwyn but also Ron Weasley and whichever poor fools chose to stand with him. That wouldn’t be a problem, although it might mean that once she dragged Rabastan home, she’d just collapse on the couch.</p><p>	Rabastan turned his neck to the side to peer into Ron’s eyes. “I would also point out that Hermione isn’t the only person in this room who has cause and reason to fight for Severus. And she’s been busy lately, I’ve been stuck in a cell.”</p><p>	“Because of your crimes.”</p><p>	“Debatable. The only person I’ve ever been able to listen to in the past 30 years without someone pressing down on my own desires with magic was Severus. So, if you try to insult my husband, let me be clear, I will tear you down.”</p><p>	“Like a death eater,” Ron snarked. </p><p>	Hermione’s eyes flashed. “No, like a wizard. He’d challenge you to a proper duel.”</p><p>	“He has no wand.”</p><p>	“Magic blessed us, he can call to mine as well as I could call to his should he have one again at another point. That’s one of the most important pieces of why this marriage cannot be called into question by the courts.”</p><p>	Rabastan nodded. “And one of the key reasons that she believes me, because magic wouldn’t bind her to a true believing death eater. That would be a large betrayal.”</p><p>	“Surely, that is not your entire defense, Mistress Granger,” Selwyn said as she walked into the court room.</p><p>	“I never place all of my eggs in one basket, no. However, it is the one I plan on using to make sure the court takes the potential charges of mind control as a possibility.” </p><p>	“But, Mistress Granger, you do know that the order of the phoenix has been very vocal about the fact that no death eater should get off on the basis that they are good wizards who were under mind control, as that was a popular false argument last time around.”</p><p>	“Madame Selwyn, if you would please refrain from tempting the defense to speak to you before the trial begins, I would take it as a kindness,” Lord Abbot suggested as he entered the court well before the other lords and ladies. </p><p>	“I wouldn’t dream of tampering, Lord Abbot, I’m merely fearful that as someone so young, she might not be thinking about the repercussions of her actions here in this court.”</p><p>	Hermione’s eyes widened in shock. That was flaunting towards the side of provoking a duel without her even having to nudge the woman into it, and with at least one lord in the room, she could. “You don’t believe I have thought my actions through.”</p><p>	“I’m sure you think you have. I’m sure you think that this won’t have any massive repercussions, because after all, you’re the golden girl from the golden trio, and I understand. But, the order doesn’t have your back here, my dear, and if they turn on you, then bad things are going to happen.”</p><p>	Hermione titled her head to the side with just a hint of a smile directed at Rabastan. She didn’t need him panicking thinking that she didn’t know exactly what she was driving towards with her decisions right now. “Do you think that the only reason that I have power is because I am Hermione Granger of the golden trio?”</p><p>	In the back, the entire audience fell quiet while Lord Abbot stared at Hermione with shock, and Selwyn just pursed her lips. “What else would you have to claim for yourself?”</p><p>	Rabastan cleared his throat. “For one, she has her own good name, for which she could easily challenge you for, Madame Selwyn. But, she no longer stands under just her own name. She hasn’t since the day we were married. Now, she stands for that of the Lestrange name as well.”</p><p>	“What?”</p><p>	“Madame Selwyn as the ranking member of the Lestrange name that is not currently under investigation, I challenge you to a duel to prove that both of us are not unjust in the light of the manner you would describe us.”</p><p>	Selwyn gasped loudly. “You can’t.”</p><p>	“She can,” Lord Abbot spoke, “and if she wins then she is allowed to represent her husband without any other claims going against him as the magic will have spoken in her favor.”</p><p>	Hermione drew her wand from her sleeve and started casting shields around the members of the audience and the judge box, that way no one other than her and Selwyn would be affected by either’s magic. Well, she supposed they could if Selwyn wasn’t smart enough to stop casting once Hermione was down on the off chance she lost. She wouldn’t put money on that happening, which is why she was willing to take the risk, but precautions are on occasion good to note, that way people can understand where they’re coming from when chaos seems to be happening.</p><p>	Selwyn gulped but drew her own wand. “Which rules are we using?”</p><p>	“Formal,” Hermione said. That was the only choice that would be valued by the court as legitimate, however, as much as she dreaded admitting it, that would give Selwyn a slight advantage. She had been raised on the different techniques of getting your opponent far enough away from their ground to count as a win, while she had learned to fight to tear the other person down.</p><p>	“Two meters or five,” Selwyn questioned. Her voice wasn’t steady, but she wasn’t willing to give up without at least trying.</p><p>	Rabastan looked up and glanced at the floor. “Better to do two given the confinements of the courtroom.”</p><p>	Lord Abbot nodded. “Is there a safe place, Lady Lestrange, to sit?”</p><p>	“Your judge chair is clear, Lord Abbot.”</p><p>	“Lady Lestrange?” Ron shouted from the crowd. The anger in his voice piercing her down to her toes, and once upon a time, she would have sent herself into a crying fit to try to reach him and get him to take back whatever words he would have harshly said to her. Those days were long gone.</p><p>	“She is my lady wife, and I am the last Lestrange to remain living,” Rabastan drawled from his position with the cuffs still dangling from his wrists. He made an interesting picture, acting as though none of this was weighing on him while sitting in the cuff that kept him from acting on his own accord. Because by the way that Selwyn phrased her insult, he could have fought by his wife’s side in this instance, yet he has to sit out by law as a prisoner.</p><p>	“The marriage was a sham. An act meant to save you and your death eater buddies from a death you rightly deserved.”</p><p>	“Perhaps. I certainly wasn’t going to ask Hermione to do this for me,” he agreed. “But, she chose to do it anyway. She chose to marry me while the chains holding me could only be broken for minutes. She chose to stand under a wave of torture that would cause lesser wizards and witches to give up anyone or anything they loved, for me. So, before you think to insult me, Mr. Weasley or any of the ones I married. Think about this, I was willing to die that day. I knew that I was not worth more, but she chose to make me worth more, and by magic, I will not let her be tarnished by anything I’ve done.”</p><p>	“That’s why I chose to,” Hermione answered the unspoken question in the court’s eyes. “You were willing to die. You were practically asking me not to save you from the fate that you were going to suffer, and I didn’t like the idea of another person dying to Voldemort’s hands without any fight left in them.”</p><p>	“Even though we all knew that he was death eater scum,” a woman in the crowd hissed.</p><p>	Hermione shrugged as Selwyn marked the floor with the proper measurements for a duel. “I certainly believe that to be true at the time of meeting him, and I didn’t even dare to believe it once we were married, because magic wouldn’t have given me to someone who willingly joined the death eaters on their beliefs.”</p><p>	“What if Zabini tampered with the spell to make it accept you?”</p><p>	Rabastan froze, so did most others in the room.</p><p>	Lord Abbot glanced up from his judge’s seat to bear his eyes straight into Ron Weasley. “Surely, you are not claiming that another member of a high-ranking family tampered with laws that are old enough to be there at the start of our society.”</p><p>	“I am saying that it is possible.”</p><p>	Hermione closed her eyes. “Ronald, shut up before you say something that requires Lord Abbot to throw you into a jail cell for slander against a wizard before your own trial.”</p><p>	“Mione, I’m a war hero.”</p><p>	Lord Abbot shook his head. “Not yet, not legally. That won’t happen for another week, and I could revoke that, in fact I plan to. What Lady Lestrange is trying to do is keep you from incriminating yourself on top of proving yourself to be a fool.”</p><p>	“I am a member of the golden trio, helped take down Voldemort, and stayed loyal.”</p><p>	Hermione scoffed under her breath at his last comment. She rubbed the bridge of her nose, before turning her back on him completely. She wouldn’t save him from his own fate any further. She tried to keep him from being a fool, but that decision was not hers to make alone. “Are you ready?”</p><p>	Selwyn nodded. “From the count of three, will you do the honors, Lord Abbot?”</p><p>	“I believe the right goes to Rabastan Lestrange as it is his wife that you are to be dueling.”</p><p>	“Three, two, one, go,” Rabastan said in the most dead pan tone that he could muster. This was perhaps one of the most ridiculous things that has ever happened to him, and he’d been mind controlled into a cult. No wonder both Severus and Draco had been looking at his wife with awe from the moment that they saw her step out of the floo to come to their aide. There was never a doubt in their minds that if there wasn’t a already a way for her to save them, she’d just have to create one. </p><p>	Hermione casted a silent protego and waited for her opponent to start throwing spells. Remaining unmovable would be way more easy if she wasn’t immediately on the attack, and she could play a long waiting game.</p><p>	Selwyn waited for a moment or two to wait for Hermione to give any indication that she was participating in the duel. When nothing happened, she shouted, “protego” and her own shield went up. She then casted an accio towards Hermione’s wand.</p><p>	Hermione’s shield flared up towards the spell to deflect it, and Hermione offered a general smile. Before she turned her wand towards the wall. Technically, this was going to cause some structural damage to the wall, and that was frowned upon, but she would fix the damage in a second. </p><p>	Selwyn pursed her lips trying to think of a spell that would cause Hermione to need to take down her shield for a moment. </p><p>	Hermione raised her wand. “Bombardo.” The wall exploded from beyond Selwyn, the boulders carefully falling all around her but avoiding the crowds and the judges, of which far more are now present. </p><p>	“You missed,” Selwyn called.</p><p>	“I wasn’t aiming for you. That would have been lethal at full force if it managed to hit you.”</p><p>	“And you’re not a murderer.”</p><p>	“Not in times of peace,” Hermione agreed. Her wand remained completely raised, and she closed her eyes. That would leave her vulnerable if Selwyn chose to try to push an attack through her shield, but she needed the lack of other things in her sight line to make sure her concentration was stable enough. “Accio boulders,” she called. </p><p>	All of the wall rose to her call and started soaring towards her. They picked Selwyn right off her feet and deposited her around Hermione where she had the boulders starting to circle her. Her eyes opened and fell on her opponent. “You’ve moved, do you yield?”</p><p>	“I yield,” the woman whispered as she stared at the destruction around her. The woman could have broken her shields in less than a second, but she chose to prove a point. She didn’t need to break a shield, there were other ways to make sure that someone moved.</p><p>	Hermione nodded and cancelled all of the spells around the courtroom. “Are you injured?”</p><p>	Selwyn blinked. “Uh, I’ll probably bruise in the morning, but for a wizard duel, that is nothing.”</p><p>	“I have some bruise salve in my bag, if you want some,” Hermione offered. Her eyes were not focusing on the witch in front of her, she was staring at the judges of the ladies and lords.<br/>	“You do not have to help her, Mistress Granger,” one of the lords whose name she didn’t have memorized spoke suddenly. </p><p>	“If I had a problem offering, I wouldn’t. I am not that idiotic. Would you like me to repair the wall before or after you hear my husband’s case?”</p><p>	Lord Abbot glanced over his shoulder at the complete wreckage of everything behind him. “I’m not 100% certain that even you can fix that.”</p><p>	Hermione shrugged. “My magic destroyed it, which means my magic would be the easiest way to convince them to go back into the less natural state. However, with the amount of damage, I did, I’ll likely be pretty close to exhausted after doing that.”</p><p>	Selwyn bit down on her tongue and took a seat.</p><p>	Lady Flint shook her head. “If you feel the need to fix it, you may, but this court will not hold you accountable for its destruction. Worse things have happened during a duel, and I believe you probably could have easily done worse to the room had you have wished.”</p><p>	Hermione furrowed her brow. She had no clue how she could have done more damage than what she’d done, but she had pretty much shown everyone in the audience that all of the shield charms in the world weren’t enough to save you in a classic duel with her. “As you believe, Lady Flint.”</p><p>	“Now, Lady Lestrange,” the man spoke again, “we have heard that you plan on running with the mind control defense once more. This court has deemed that the defense is no longer allowed in the trials before this moment.”</p><p>	“I believe the decision was specified on the idea that there was no evidence of mind control.”</p><p>	“Precisely.”</p><p>	“I have evidence. Plenty in fact, I have the live testimony from Severus Snape decorated member of the order of the phoenix, the marriage binding myself to Rabastan Lestrange, and the fact that even today when the prosecution called me out on trying to run this argument that she was unable to win.”</p><p>	“You want us to take the word of one death eater in defense of another death eater.”</p><p>	Hermione snorted. “He was declared not guilty of accessory crimes less than an hour ago, and even the defense was unwilling to try him on death eater charges. He was a known spy by everyone with a shred of common decency in this world by the end.”</p><p>	Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Ron leading his merry band of protesters out of the court. Maybe he finally realized that his current plan wasn’t going to help anyone least of all himself.</p><p>	“That is accurate, Mistress Granger, and I am sure that dear Lord Smith was not attempting to insinuate anything against your husband’s honor. I believe his concern lies with that fact that Severus Snape did have to do terrible things while spying for the light. And, I am sure there were times when he thought some of the people there were his friends. Just like you have proven, wouldn’t you break law, bend the truth to save them from any difficulty,” Lady Flint interjected. </p><p>	“Indeed, that is true. That is why I urge you to not just consider the evidence laid out before you by me, but instead consider giving my husband veritaserum. I have provided enough for the court enough that every person on trial for crimes of dark arts and death eaters can be given that should they choose for a proper charge of mind control to be claimed.”</p><p>	Lord Abbot turned to Rabastan. “Do you consent to the truth serum, knowing that the truth will come out, no matter what you want the truth to say?”</p><p>	Rabastan nodded. “Yes, my lord. If these actions were mine, I’d deserve to be punished to the harshest extent of the law. But, as far as, I am concerned, and as my wife believes.”</p><p>	Lord Abbot extended the vial to Hermione. “If you wouldn’t mind administering the potion as his wife, we would be appreciative.”</p><p>	Hermione poured the three drops into her husband’s mouth and took a seat. There was no need for her to be standing. She wouldn’t be allowed to ask the question, they could claim that she was leading him to answers that would prove his innocence based on her own personal and intimate knowledge of the situation. </p><p>	Lady Flint stood to ask the questions, although her eyes betrayed, she already knew that the answers would prove the points being made. She usually bet on the people who didn’t have any tension, and Hermione Granger had yet to display a single doubt in all of her time in court. “Please state your name for the court.”</p><p>	“Rabastan Arista Lestrange.”</p><p>	“To your knowledge have you ever had the spell imperious cast on you?”</p><p>	“Yes, on several occasions.”</p><p>	Lady Flint closed her eyes, she didn’t want to have to face the blank stare he’d be giving her. She didn’t want to face the fact that all of them should have checked to make sure that none of the death eaters in Azkaban could cast a wandless imperious or at least hold one together, but none of them thought that would ever be a problem. “Were there ever actions taken as a death eater when you were of your own free will?”</p><p>	Rabastan hesitated, he wasn’t aware that the truth serum allowed for that, but he supposed that made sense since he wasn’t even sure of the correct answer to that question. “No.”</p><p>	“Why did you hesitate?”</p><p>	“There were rare occasions when I was handed off to Severus for the imperious of the evening, or week, although no one ever wanted Severus in charge for that long, he had too many important meetings to attend as the supposed spy. When he was in charge, he wouldn’t really use the imperious. He’d just cast a bafflement charm when we were in public to make it seem like he wanted me to make a fool of myself in payback for the supposed crimes I committed against him, although that was mainly Bellatrix using me. When we were alone, I wouldn’t be under any charm. For a couple hours, I was allowed to be free, do as I wished as long as it didn’t implicate him.”</p><p>	“Would you say that you hid Severus Snape’s status as a spy?”</p><p>	“No. I never knew that he was working for the light, I just knew that he didn’t like mind control.”</p><p>	“Why then were you protecting him?”</p><p>	“Because he gave me a reason to keep living. He became the beacon of light at the end of every dark tunnel my twin or his wife put me through. I would have done anything to protect him.” </p><p>	Lady Flint found Hermione’s eyes in the crowd and swallowed hard. “Please state for the court why you believe yourself to be not guilty.”</p><p>	Rabastan expected the words to choke in his throat, but then he realized that between Severus and Hermione, they’d convinced him he didn’t deserve to suffer. “Because my punishment was being forced to witness my hands commit crimes that they didn’t want to commit. Because I suffered in Azkaban already for crimes that I didn’t willingly commit. Because this court has failed me once without offering me a benefit of a doubt. Without tearing me from those torturing my mind as would normally be done. I am an innocent man, who has enough survivor’s guilt to drown in, you don’t need to add to my suffering to be assured of my suffering.”</p><p>	Lord Abbot was murmuring with the others in the judge panel under his breath where most of them couldn’t overhear what was being said. “Lord Lestrange, the court not only finds you not guilty, but finds that we have wronged you in many different manners. If you have any requests for this court to right the wrongs committed against you, I would hear them.”</p><p>	“No offense attended ladies and lords, but I would ask that you just leave my family alone. Let us enter society at our own pace. Don’t come looking for us, and don’t let anyone else come searching either.”</p><p>	“Agreed,” Lord Smith said.</p><p>	With that, they all stood up. They left the court with a billow of their robes, and Hermione fell over in deep relief. She had managed to do it all. </p><p>	Selwyn stopped in front of Hermione after the judges were gone. “This is the last death eater you snatch from allowing me to bring to justice, yes?”</p><p>	“No one escaped justice, they were just never guilty of the crimes that you were trying to accuse them of, but I am sorry that this hurt you so much.”</p><p>	“I don’t agree.”</p><p>	“I never thought you’d do so. Leave, Selwyn, before you insult me enough that I decide to actually try to hurt you by defending the guilty.”</p><p>	“Would you?” Rabastan asked.</p><p>	“It’d make Draco happy if his father wasn’t rotting in Azkaban, and it would cause Selwyn a great deal of pain.”</p><p>	Selwyn bustled out of the room, while Hermione nodded. She didn’t doubt that Selwyn knew that her word was good for it. She would defend Lucius if it meant that she wouldn’t be insulted any longer and neither would her husbands.</p><p>	Luna stepped into the room and grinned. She tapped Rabastan’s cuff and it fell off into her hand. “I am glad that you were found not guilty. I wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to threaten the others into behaving around you.”</p><p>	“You did admirably.”</p><p>	Hermione sighed. She picked up her wand and casted reparo on the wall. The boulders flew up from the ground and knit themselves back into a formation that the founders had thought would look nice in the basement floor. She could feel the cost of doing magic such as this. Defying physics was never a fun type of magic to participate in, because it did not want to be denied, and it wasn’t about to allow others to believe differently.</p><p>	Rabastan placed his hand on her shoulder. “Come, lady wife, we should get home to reassure the others, and to get you on a comfortable surface for when you fall.”</p><p>	Hermione tensed in under his hand. She had almost forgotten that she had to get them both back home unharmed. No telling whether all of the people that Ron had convinced to be wrathful would be waiting for them, and in her current state, she couldn’t predict whether she could get them both all the way home safely. She muttered under her breath.</p><p>	Luna bit her lower lip. “You can’t hide in here.”</p><p>	Rabastan glanced down at his wife. “If you ask me to take up your wand and get us home, I will.”</p><p>	“But, you would probably hate me for it. Let’s go. If I could ride out of Gringotts while on the back of a dragon disguised as your former sister-in-law, I’m sure I can make it home tired with an innocent death eater on my arm.”</p><p>	“This is why your friends worry. Too much Hercules, too little Hera, and no amount of Zeus’s love can save you,” Luna deadpanned, before leaving the room.</p><p>	“She said something similar at our wedding.”</p><p>	Hermione nodded. “I’ve been Hercules for a while. I still don’t quite know whether I am Hera or whether that is a different metaphor entirely. She doesn’t usually offer explanations.”</p><p>	Rabastan stared in the direction that she left. “Perhaps the world doesn’t follow the same lines for her as it does for us. There are many muggle theories I believe on why some people seem to have much different reactions to various stimuli, maybe wizards are not so different.”</p><p>Hermione huffed. “If they were, I’d be shocked. But yes, I see your point.” With that she linked their arms and stepped out of the courtroom to be assaulted with the many different screams from a large crowd drawn that was blocking the way to the floo almost completely. She hissed under her breath at their nerve. How dare they show up here when she was trying so hard to make sure that her husband would have a decent day for the first time since the war ended.</p><p>	Neville stepped around the corner and met Rabastan’s eyes. “You were there,” he said softly, ignoring Hermione’s expression.</p><p>	Rabstan nodded.</p><p>	“I can’t imagine the pain of watching yourself destroy two people with a child with no intent to do so. I can’t imagine the pain that the anguish you inflicted on my parents did to you, and they might choose to judge you for the actions you couldn’t control, but I will not be one of them.”</p><p>	“For what’s it worth, if I could have stopped any of them, that one is on the top three of my list.”</p><p>	Hermione let out a soft chuckle. “The first better be Voldemort’s return.”</p><p>	“I was still in a prison cell for that one, so alas even without the mind control, I’d have been busy getting my soul sucked out.”</p><p>	Neville drew his wand and placed a hand on Hermione’s arm. “Friends, right?”</p><p>	“For eternity, because a hat said so.”</p><p>	With that Neville turned to address the growing crowds. “Move out of their way.” No one heeded his words, and he shook his head. He raised his wand high and called for his magic. “Petrificus Totalus.” Then, once the entirety of the crowd was frozen, he guided them out of the way of a clear path. </p><p>	Hermione smiled in the face of a memory that she had long since forgotten in the background of everything else. “Thank you, Neville.”</p><p>	“He once said that it took true courage to stand up to friends, but he knew full well that I was in the wrong that night. If you hadn’t gone, Tom Riddle would have gotten a different way to be immortal, and child soldiers would have been unnecessary, because there would have been no winning. I’m repaying an old favor.”</p><p>	Rabastan just looked between them confused as all hell.</p><p>	“Dumbledore would have known your innocence,” Neville explained. “Severus would have told him as a part of his reports, but he chose to let me blame you, to let the courts blame you. And, I am sick and tired of more victims of Dumbledore’s crimes existing than Voldemort’s.”</p><p>	“I would call myself both, would you not?”</p><p>	“No.”</p><p>	Hermione took a step and pulled Rabastan with her. “Don’t ask him more than that.”</p><p>	“Why?” he asked under his breath.</p><p>	“Because Neville didn’t want to be the guy with a sword ready to swing, he didn’t want to be brave and true. He wanted to be happy with his plants. But, the world sees him as the man who helped when nothing was left. He can’t be nothing anymore, and that’s all he ever wanted.”</p><p>	“Potter manor,” she called as she stepped them both through the floo. </p><p>	Draco looked up from his spot lounging on the couch as she entered through the floo. He took in her eyes, slightly covered with unshed tears. “Which old friend?”</p><p>	“Neville.”</p><p>	“A good man,” he said.</p><p>	Rabastan turned to Draco. “You don’t even know what he did today.”</p><p>	“I don’t need to. I was there as he pushed the Carrows to target him over every single younger child in Hogwarts. I was there as some of the other older students joined in, while I couldn’t because of the mark, so instead I snuck potions to the resistance when no one’s eyes were on me.”</p><p>	Hermione plopped down on the couch until she was leaning into the cushions, far closer to Draco than she would have thought herself comfortable with this early on, but she’d learned that they were in this together, and she didn’t want him to think otherwise. “I wish I had been there.”</p><p>	“No, you don’t. You’d have been dead, even Severus wouldn’t have been able to save you.”</p><p>	“Might have been a better fate than being on the run against the whole government when they want you dead. Better than realizing that someone you thought you could love would leave you when things got rough, while having a piece of that monster’s soul trying to convince you to turn around. Because oh, he promised such pretty things.”</p><p>	“What’d he offer you?” Severus asked, almost curious. He hadn’t thought Voldemort would find anything that he could offer the muggleborn girl that she’d consider even remotely reasonable for the price.</p><p>	Rabastan curled up next to Severus. “You’re not supposed to ask people that. It’s too personal.”</p><p>	Hermione closed her eyes and let her mind drift, but she knew she’d answer the questions. “At first, there were threats. There were just constant bombardments of mental images of the different tortures that he could inflict upon me, that he’d spare me from, if I’d only hand him back to his main form. When that didn’t work, he tried to figure out what made me tick. He found the same energy he had as a young boy. Disillusioned with power, and he told me all of the ways he was going to make the world better. About how muggles weren’t the real problem, but the fact that they were corrupt, and how his world order would initially be strict and unwavering, but that by the time that everything ended both sides would be free without the threat of the war. He offered me a place by his side. I could have been the next Bellatrix Lestrange. And, oh, he made sure I knew that the other version of him would honor his own word. All I had to do was kill the boy and come home,” she explained. </p><p>	“All I had to do was abandon the one person still with me,” she whispered. “I stayed loyal, not because Tom Riddle didn’t reach me, but because I couldn’t bring myself to betray the loyalty that I had for Harry Potter.”</p><p>	“You sound almost regretful,” Rabastan noted. </p><p>	“Can you tell me honestly that the world is better? Did things change when we killed him or is the system still broken enough that another dark lord or lady will rise again? Did we change the wheel or did we just end this cycle?”</p><p>	Severus shrugged. “That’s not our job. That was never our job. Our job was to make sure that this one failed, the next generation will have to deal with the next one.”</p><p>	“I’m not willing to put that on them,” Hermione replied.</p><p>	Draco reached out a hand and wrapped her hand in his. His fingers slid over hers in a warm embrace of such a tiny portion of both of them. “Then, we’ll break the wheel as you put it. Only let’s wait a couple days.”</p><p>	“Wait until after we have a house,” Rabastan added. “And then, we’ll help you in whatever manner we can.”</p><p>	Hermione nodded. “I wasn’t really planning on doing anything before then. I need a break from one campaign to save people to the next. I wasn’t even planning on doing this much before I had like a month to heal from Voldemort, but you know the fates didn’t really want me to wait.”</p><p>	Draco noticed the way that she was slumping into the couch, barely still reacting with her eyes closed. “Hermione, I’d prefer not to sleep alone again tonight.”</p><p>	“Kay, I’m fine sleeping in the big bed.”</p><p>	Rabastan shared a glance with Severus that suggested that he was super confused, and Severus just shrugged.</p><p>	“Right, bedrooms.” Her eyes opened, and she convinced her body to actually stand up like she wanted. “I kept us all in this wing because that requires less effort than making the entire manor habitable when no one has lived here in like almost two decades. First bedroom on the left is Draco’s. Second on the left is mine. The right ones are yours, Rabastan, and yours Severus. Technically, there’s a door sharing between them, but I didn’t think that you’d be upset with that. The first is Severus’s because I tried to get some decorations and shelves and stuff that you’d like in your rooms. Down at the end of the wing is a huge master bedroom, with a bed big enough to have four people easily. That is open for everyone and where Draco and I ended up last night, and apparently will tonight too.” </p><p>	She rolled her neck to meet Draco’s eyes. “Am I missing anything?”</p><p>	“Go to sleep, I’ll take care of any other questions that come up.”</p><p>	Hermione huffed but followed his instructions. She had barely avoided falling asleep on the couch. Her robes were stripped off of her before she reached the bedroom to throw into her normal bedroom, leaving her in just her underwear as she found a nicer set of pajamas in her dresser in the main bedroom, and she curled up on the bed. She trusted Draco to make sure that she was safe.</p><p>	Draco shook his head and picked up Hermione’s wand from where she dropped it on the counter as she walked out of the room. “She often leaves the wand for the last person awake, until she could get us all new wands. She needs one too, but that can be an adventurous conversation for the morning.”</p><p>	“Why does she need a new wand?” Rabastan tilted his head to the side to see whether he could notice anything wrong with the wand.</p><p>	“Have you never paid attention to the wands of witches and wizards, Bast?” Severus teased as he leaned back.</p><p>	“Magic is a person’s. A wand is a tool, never saw much reason to put much stock in them.”</p><p>	Draco choked a little. “Maybe you should pay better attention, because this wand used to belong to your sister-in-law, before Hermione liberated it while being tortured.”</p><p>	Rabastan closed his eyes for a moment. “Is there anything that our wife can’t do?”</p><p>	Draco tapped the wand on his arm a couple times, before shaking his head. “As far as I’m aware, once Hermione decides that it needs to be done, it will be done. It might take her a while, she might have to make deals with every single person she’s ever met, but she’ll make sure that it happens.”</p><p>	Silence settled over all of them. A casual admittance that they were safe, that they had enough miracles to last a lifetime, and that the actual lifetime plans could start in the morning. Before Draco turned to Rabastan. “I am glad she got you out without starting a war.”</p><p>	Severus choked on his next breath of air. “I beg your pardon.”</p><p>	“I asked her last night whether she could promise me that she could get you out. I thought maybe she’d say no, because she couldn’t predict the jury, or maybe yes, but she wouldn’t be thinking of what would happen if she failed. Instead, she looked at me and gave me the same smile that mother used to give whenever she plotted to win no matter what happened next. And she said, yes. Because even if the magical world has determined that they need to suffer further, I will get them home to a place where I have the advantage. I’ve burned down more powerful buildings than the ministry.” Draco leaned back. “I asked her to promise me your return, and she told me if it meant you would be persecuted, she wouldn’t take her break from changing the world, she’d just kill everyone between you and her.”</p><p>	Rabastan flinched. “I’m not worth that.”</p><p>	Draco sat up straight, so he could reach across the sitting area to take Rabastan’s hand in his. “Well, magic has informed me to not listen to you in regards to that, so I’m planning on ignoring you. You are mine, and I don’t like my people being hurt.”</p><p>	Then, he dropped Rabastan’s hand and stretched all of his muscles. “I’m going to head to bed. All of the rooms have attached bathrooms, so you shouldn’t need that. And for the rest of the details of the house, waiting until morning seems like a better plan.”	</p><p>	Severus nodded. “Keep the wand, I’ll be heading towards the bed areas shortly, and I’d prefer that our wife not to have to go searching for her current wand when she awakens.”</p><p>	Draco huffed in amusement but didn’t correct Severus. Hermione wouldn’t care even slightly if one of them had the wand when she woke up, she’d just summon it from them. She’d laugh carelessly if she found out that one of them had been comfortable enough with her to allow such liberties.</p><p>	Rabastan nodded. “To the bedrooms.”</p><p>	With that, all of them split up. Draco ended up taking off most of his clothes, and he debated slipping on his pajamas but ended up not because he didn’t want to return to his bedroom to grab them, or confuse the others by summoning them to the other room. </p><p>	He toed Hermione closer to the middle of the bed, so he could be on the edge for a quick escape. He learned last night that Hermione had no such issues, because she could lunge from anywhere on the bed with minimum resistance. He kept his eyes open and going through some of his desires for the near future.</p><p>	Severus found his room and almost immediately smiled at the desk in the corner. There were journals that he knew were his, that Hermione must have retrieved and placed in order for him in his bedroom, and there was even a few new journals that she would have bought in case he needed a fresh start coming home. He picked up an old copy of a book and sat in his new bed to read a few chapters before his brain would drift off enough to sleep.</p><p>	Rabastan stood in his room with shock. She’d made sure he had all of the things that he could have wanted, without knowing any details about him. She couldn’t have known that he had a thing for soft textures to buy pillows and blankets that were designed to be as fluffy as possible. She shouldn’t have been able to find out that his favorite shade of blue was just a glimmer lighter than the one that sky looks like on a clear sunny day. So, how was his room designed for him?</p><p>	He sat down on the edge of the bed, but his nerves were fried, and he didn’t want to just lay back and let them run across his brain for fun times. He bit down on his lip, and he wonders whether he should just walk to the bigger bedroom without saying a word to anyone. That would bring him the most comfort, but he’s not sure that’s something he should be allowed to do after everything else that has happened.</p><p>	He found himself outside of Severus’s room with a pout on his face. “I can’t sleep,” he said as an explanation.</p><p>	“You’re welcome in here with me,” Severus offered automatically shifting away from the center of the bed.</p><p>	“Do you think they’d be upset if I dragged you with me into the other bedroom where I could feel all of them? That would decrease my anxiety the most.”</p><p>	Severus inhaled sharply. He hadn’t intended to try to push any connection at the start of this relationship. He knew that most of them had negative experience with relationships, let alone a blooming marriage with their magic wrapped around each other. Still, sleeping in a bigger bed closer to the one who had the best chance of protecting them sounded good to him as well. “We could try.”</p><p>	“Do you not want to, Severus? Because I don’t want to be the reason that you push boundaries.”</p><p>	“I both want to and am absolutely terrified of Hermione deciding that all of this is way too much for her. In a normal life, we would have at least taken her to dinner. Maybe, we would have cooked her a meal. But, we wouldn’t be married with magic blessing us and calling to each other, without knowing much about each other.”</p><p>	Rabastan casted his eyes over the room. “I think we might be short-changing the amount of information that Hermione dug up while we were in prison. Your room is tailored to you.”</p><p>	“Tailored to a professor,” he drawled. </p><p>	“Tailored to you, who happens to be a professor. Because last time I checked, not all professors carried around huge tomes of every potion text ever written even those out of date. And even further, how many people know that the professor has a lasting interest in muggle alchemy and whether that can be mixed with regular potion skills.”</p><p>	Severus looked around his room again and noticed the little personal touches, he hadn’t even thought about before. The way that his robes were organized by length just as he held them in Hogwarts, or the way that his dresser tucked into the corner of the room to not take up much room. And a canopy to keep light in the room without letting light into his bed. </p><p>	“Did she give you something similar?”</p><p>	“Yes.”</p><p>	Severus pushed himself off his bed, and curled an arm around Rabastan’s shoulders. “Then, I’m going to say Hermione won’t object to our presence when she wakes up.”</p><p>	Draco glanced up as Severus and Rabastan showed up in the room. “She won’t wake up no matter what you do, so don’t worry.”</p><p>	Severus furrowed his brow. “Dreamless sleep?”</p><p>	“Magical burnout from once again pushing herself way too hard to make sure you two were safe today, rather than making sure that she had enough reserves.”</p><p>	“Why did she push so hard?”</p><p>	“Best way to save us, and the best way that no one thinks to look closer for intentions of destroying a sitting government to save her husbands.”</p><p>	Severus swallowed down his gut protests. Ranting to Draco, while it might feel good, wouldn’t actually help them at all. “Do you mind?”</p><p>	Draco shook his head. “We all have dressers in here too, if you want to set anything down. No clue whether Hermione will move when you get into the bed, but I can guarantee she won’t be awake for it.”<br/>	Severus settled onto the large bed on his back, where he prefers to sleep. He waited a moment, and when no one moved, he let out a sigh of relief. </p><p>	Rabastan curled up on his side, next to Severus, where his body was mostly connected to Severus, but his other arm, he stretches further over and behind Severus to reach Draco. </p><p>	Draco intwined their fingers similarly to how he had done this for Hermione earlier and finally shut his eyes.</p><p>	Hermione murmured in her sleep, before turning on her side to find Severus’s body heat, where both sides of her were completely warm.</p><p>	Severus’s eyes went wide, and Rabastan kissed his cheek. “Sleep. Don’t worry until morning.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Day After</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Now the real craziness of living together with three men that you ended up married to shows up.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hermione twisted under the covers as she started to wake up. She was warm, but she wanted to have more heat. She made the mistake of blinking her eyes to realize that she was not pressed against Draco’s chest. That she would have seen coming, since she told him she’d stay where he could curl up with her as he requested. It took her way longer than she ever expected to realize that it was Severus that she was sprawling underneath her. </p>
<p>	She took a deep breath, before she pushed herself out and off the bed. She’d probably slip out to buy breakfast today. They needed to have a conversation about so many things today, and yet her first order of business wasn’t even a conversation. It was marching all of them to get wands. She was sick and tired of only having one wand in the house, even if she could accomplish some wandless magic. Plus, it made them seem more like criminals and less like victims of a war. </p>
<p>	Draco grumbled as she made it out of the bed. He didn’t want to miss her warmth. “Wand,” he growled, while still mostly asleep.</p>
<p>	“Beside you, I’m going to muggle London, so I won’t need it,” she whispered.</p>
<p>	Severus blinked his eyes open at the hushed tones. “You shouldn’t leave without a wand, there are still some out there that would be grateful for the opportunity to kill you.”</p>
<p>	Hermione squinted her eyes. “Well, I’m not going to. I don’t like carrying a wand around muggle London, because my first reaction to anything is to use magic. And I have violent reactions to flashes of green light now.”</p>
<p>	“Do they have that in common places?”</p>
<p>	“It’s called neon lighting, and a lot of muggles think that its now a punk style.”</p>
<p>	Severus flinched under the covers. “Perhaps leaving the wand here is for the best.”</p>
<p>	Hermione inclined her head. “That was my assumption as well.” Then, she left the room after grabbing a set of muggle clothing from her dresser. Breakfast wasn’t something she wanted to cook, but she was hungry as all hell. Croissants, maybe some scones. Draco would definitely look at her like she was his savior for more than all of the obvious reasons if she brought back some actual donuts. So, on her way out, she grabbed the pouch of money that they both had taken to placing on the doorway counter.</p>
<p>	Severus turned towards Draco, who was already cuddling up under the blankets further. “Are you not staying awake?”</p>
<p>	“Nope. The sun might be up, but I have nowhere to hurry to be, so I’m going to sleep.”</p>
<p>	Severus thought about that for a moment, before realizing that he didn’t really either. He needed to go to Hogwarts at some point. Help make sure that the wards accepted that Mcgongall was meant to be the headmistress now, and that maybe if he was lucky, she’d let him come back to teach, this time without needing to maintain evil pretenses. He could teach without being harsh to students from Gryffindor. He could be unbiased, yet strict like he had always wanted. </p>
<p>	Before he knew it, there were tears in his eyes, and both of his husbands were dead asleep once more, and his wife was out in muggle London doing something. So, he dug himself out of the embrace and stood in a room that didn’t make any sense. Why did he have a dresser in the room with what looked like a full set of his clothes just like his bedroom had? And why when he looked towards the closet, did he find robes for all four of them hanging?</p>
<p>	He wasn’t a bad man, he was just forced into horrible circumstances, but still he expected more resistance from one of the people he had to torment most frequently to maintain cover. Especially when on top of marrying him to save him, she had married two other potential threats, one of whom was her childhood bully and the other was a man at two decades her senior that she had never met before. </p>
<p>	He dragged himself out of the bedroom before succumbing to his own sorrow and sobbing on the couch. He didn’t look up when he heard the door open, and he couldn’t bring himself to fight back the tears that he was shedding.</p>
<p>	Hermione dropped the food onto the counter of the kitchen before turning to Severus. “Bad day?”</p>
<p>	“What?”</p>
<p>	“The reason why you’re crying, is it because you’re having a bad day, because all of us are entitled to those, and I will lock this house up so tight nothing short of a nuclear blast will get anyone to find us, so that you don’t have to deal with anything or anyone, if its that kind of bad day? But, if its something else, I probably don’t need to do that drastic.”</p>
<p>	Severus peered at her from behind his tear ridden eyes to find that his sobbing had stopped as he forced himself to listen to her insane question. “Hermione, you can’t just sequester us from the world when we have bad days.”</p>
<p>	“I can, and I will. Preferably with the promise that you’ll do the same for me, but I’ll live without that if need be.”</p>
<p>	“The ministry will panic if they realize that three death eaters just vanished from where they could reach just a day after most of them were found not guilty at the trial.”</p>
<p>	Hermione shrugged and dug out one of the warm croissants to start eating. “I’m going to go off a limb and say that you’re not just having a bad day, given that you’re deflecting. What’s actually got you to crawl from are extremely comfortable bed, into the living room?”</p>
<p>	“The deflection was a sign that I didn’t want to talk about it.”</p>
<p>	“No, the deflection was you trying to convince yourself you didn’t want to talk about it, but you came to the living area, right across from the kitchen that you knew I’d be arriving in with breakfast. You have a bedroom with a lock, you have a potion’s lab with wards, but you chose here.”</p>
<p>	Severus glared at Hermione, but she didn’t even flinch away from the glance. She just reached back into the bag and tossed him another croissant. </p>
<p>	Severus took a bite from the bread. “I do not deserve the kindness being afforded to me,” he said.</p>
<p>	Hermione scoffed. “I do not believe you are the best witness for whether or not you deserve kindness.”</p>
<p>	“I realized the error of my ways, and I did everything in my power to make up for them, but I was evil once, Hermione Granger. I was willing to call my best friend a mudblood, which I know Potter saw. And he wasn’t a smart enough boy back then to keep it secret.”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded. “He also told us the whole story, and while Harry and Ron were determined that you were the bad guy, I said you were in a difficult position. That doesn’t justify what you did, but that didn’t make you evil. You didn’t carve the word on her skin, you just tossed it out when you were embarrassed, and the people she called friends were the ones that hurt you. That wasn’t the first time they hurt you either, was it?”</p>
<p>	“No.”</p>
<p>	“Did you go to someone?”</p>
<p>	“I went to the person I was supposed to be able to trust. I went to Dumbledore.”</p>
<p>	“And he turned you away,” she summarized. She turned to meet his eyes. “You do not deserve to be hated, Severus Snape. You deserve to have your clothes in a safe place until such a time as we have a home to call our own. You deserve to have the chances that you weren’t afforded before this point in your life. You deserve whatever happiness you can carve out of this cruel world.”</p>
<p>	“I don’t deserve your comfort though. I don’t deserve theirs either,” he said jerking his head to indicate the bedroom.</p>
<p>	“Do I?”</p>
<p>	“Pardon?”</p>
<p>	Hermione blinked as she reached for another piece of bread. Being on the run had decreased her appetite, but since moving into this house, she found that she was almost always hungry and in need of food. “Do I deserve comfort? Whatever form I choose, because I went through hell.”</p>
<p>	“Of course, you do.”</p>
<p>	“Then, perhaps, you should consider that Draco didn’t need company last night, but I definitely did, but I won’t ask for it. I never have, because that is a sign of weakness, and the second I showed those someone would tear me down. So, Draco saw it in the way that I latched onto his hand, the way that I kept my body angled towards his the whole time, and he gave me a reason to go into the larger bed.”</p>
<p>	“What?”</p>
<p>	“Draco let you into that room for many reasons. He had plenty that I don’t know about, but a solid reason I do know, is that he knew I’d be happier with more people around me.”</p>
<p>	Severus blinked, and his tears were much less noticeable now. “But, you have friends.”</p>
<p>	“I have Harry Potter, the boy who lived, and who cannot always read emotions, and who has more nightmares than me, who craves to be left alone. I had Ron, but after the war, I don’t know whether either of us are ever going to be able to look each other in the face ever again. There was too much on our plates, and he might get over what happened, but I cannot. I have Theo Nott, who is fighting back his desire to lock me away in his tower before I get myself hurt any further. I have Blaise Zabini, who doesn’t really want to stay in Britain. In fact, he’s probably in France by now, but he’ll drop by through floo when I call. And, I have Luna, who believes that my part of the story isn’t over yet, despite the fact that for just a few days, I need more than anything, the idea that everything is done and buried.”</p>
<p>	“So, who did you lean on before you got Draco out of the cell?”</p>
<p>	“Myself. And Blaise stayed that long, even through your trial, and even Theo who wouldn’t dare lock me up away from saving you three.”</p>
<p>	Severus nodded. They remained quiet for some more moments before he looked up at her again. “I just wanted to be potions master and teach the class at Hogwarts. I wanted to be a better teacher than the ones that came before me. I never wanted someone to tell an attacked student that it was on them ever again, and instead I ended up being a spy for two evil bastards, neither of whom were willing to let me do that.”</p>
<p>	“So, do that now.” Hermione set the coffee pot up to start brewing. “We should probably get the house thing situated first, but after that, you can be a proper professor. McGonagall would be delighted, and so would Flitwick.”</p>
<p>	“I’m not even a proper wizard. I don’t have a wand, instead I share my magically blessed wife’s wand, which isn’t hers, its one of the pyscho witches I was forced to have tea with. The only reason I even get to have my magic accessed right now is because that wife stood up in front of a government body that wanted to see me destroyed and told them no.”</p>
<p>	Hermione blinked once, then again. She held out her hand, and her wand came flying from the bedroom. She twirled it in her hand for a second, before nodding. “You’re right. You have every reason to be pissed off at the world, and if you want to do something with that anger, just tell me, and I’ll be right be your side. But, you are a wizard, and we are going to get wands today.”</p>
<p>	Then, she pointed the wand at the bedroom area. “Accio Draco’s blanket.” The blanket soared towards her until she spun her wand and it folded down on the couch in the living area slowly. She tossed the wand at Severus.</p>
<p>	A loud shriek came from the bedroom, and Draco rushed out to hide behind Hermione with the humor lit up in his eyes. “I swear Bast, I didn’t curse the blanket off of you.”</p>
<p>	Hermione sighed. “Sorry, Rabastan. That one won’t wake up if I don’t provide motivation, and we’ve got a busy schedule.”</p>
<p>	“What the hell needs to get done fast enough that you woke me up the first time that I got a proper bed?” The growl was mostly fake. He wasn’t about to be angry at the woman who gave them so much, but also he wanted sleep dammit. </p>
<p>	“Wands,” she drawled in her best impression of Severus when he was upset at a student for being dumb.</p>
<p>	Rabastan blinked. “That’s a valid reason, but I demand to sleep in tomorrow.”</p>
<p>	Hermione snorted. “I have no plans on waking you tomorrow. Because to be honest, I’m not sure I plan on being awake tomorrow early.”</p>
<p>	Draco grinned over at her. “Finally, you’re going to take a break. I’ve known you closely for less than a week, and I know that you do not take enough breaks.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan glared at Draco, clearly still blaming him in part for the early wake up.</p>
<p>	Severus waved the wand and a cup of coffee soared to Rabastan. “Drink, eat, and get dressed.” Then, he tossed the wand back at Hermione as he walked to go get some clothes for the day. </p>
<p>	“Severus, if you want something you can brew in once we get back, those clothes are in the personal bedroom, not ours,” Hermione called. </p>
<p>	Draco choked back his laughter as Severus froze halfway to the room. </p>
<p>	“What are you laughing at?”</p>
<p>	“Pardon,” Rabastan interjected. “But you did just suggest that you have separate closets for each of us, and that you know enough about us to suggest which one we’ll want on a given day.”</p>
<p>	“Well, I would have made sure that the closet in the master had everyone’s, but that would have required an extension charm, and I’m better at permanent transfiguration or just warding it to do that for long periods, and this isn’t actually are house, so I had to prioritize where the robe sets would be. I put formal robes for all of us in the master, and I included comfort clothes and muggle clothing in the drawers. The rest is in your rooms,” she said. That seemed reasonable to her.</p>
<p>	Severus shook his head to free his immediate thought to snap that her statement confirmed everything that Rabastan said and had not given a single further to thought to anything. “Where did you get the clothes?”</p>
<p>	“Some of them I bought new garments, others I picked up. McGonagall was more than happy to return the clothes that survived the battle for when you returned home, Narcissa stopped by with Draco’s clothes, and I didn’t manage to get any of Rabastan’s old clothes. Sorry, Rabastan, but I can’t walk into her home alone, I just can’t. But, then I filled out the wardrobes.”</p>
<p>	Draco snorted. “So much for trying to keep the entire country from knowing about our nuptials then.”	</p>
<p>	Hermione furrowed her brow. “Why would we do that?”</p>
<p>	“So you could have a normal life,” Severus said.</p>
<p>	“I never had one, and I don’t imagine I shall get one now either. Instead, I will settle for three husbands who get ready, because as much as this wand likes me, I don’t want to use it longer than necessary now that I’ve finally thought about the fact that I have another option.”</p>
<p>	Severus marched out of the room to find the robes that she described. She didn’t deserve their anger at the situation. She didn’t deserve the fact that none of them were able to give her a proper courtship according to the wizarding world, and she certainly didn’t deserve the scorn they would get anything they walked in public now.</p>
<p>	Rabastan leaned against Severus’ doorway to stare at him. “She doesn’t know the culture of pureblood status.”</p>
<p>	“No, she might know people, and they might have some protection placed around her status, but she doesn’t know what this does.”</p>
<p>	Draco walked past them and arched an eyebrow at them. “Wrong on both accounts, I’m afraid. She knows full well what she did when she declared us her husbands by buying for us in public. She claimed us under her protection, which is why I can walk outside without someone trying to curse me, because she would drive them back, and she’d make them regret their decision to live. Or I would once I get a wand. You forget magic blessed us, which hasn’t happened since the creation of the noble 28, now there’s 29 families, one of them is ours.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan whirled around to stare at Draco. “But?”</p>
<p>	“No buts. The law is clear, and Hermione is very good at making sure that people know exactly where they can stick any prejudice. So, that cursed mark on her arm isn’t even accurate, although she wears it like a title now.”</p>
<p>	Hermione poked her head inside the room with an arched brow that followed Draco’s form but quickly averted her eyes when she realized that Severus was half-way dressed only. “I’ve already filed the paperwork. The house name is large, but they won’t say a word. Technically, many of the witches told me that even with magic’s blessing, I should make you crawl through the hoops of a courtship, but I figured with everything we’ve been through, we should just make it up as we go.”</p>
<p>	“Why?” Rabastan asked as he glided himself around her to get to his own room and a set of robes.</p>
<p>	“It helped with the whole making sure that you guys were able to get free, and also it allowed for Luna, Theo, and Blaise feel like they could do something for me. They took care of just about everything while I dug myself into an early grave for those cuffs to allow you into a real prison, so I could have you stand trial.”</p>
<p>	Draco closed his eyes. “An early grave?”</p>
<p>	“Probably like three quarters filled before I managed to finish the spell and drag myself back out of the dirt.”</p>
<p>	Severus laughed, the sound unfamiliar to him entirely. “The same girl who lit me on fire her first year.”</p>
<p>	“I thought you were hurting my best friend,” she defended.</p>
<p>	“I was saving your friend.”</p>
<p>	“I didn’t know that at the time. I thought you were perhaps insane enough to curse him in the middle of witnesses. Not very Slytherin, which should have been a clue towards Quirrell.”</p>
<p>	“If you want to run on technicalities, Quirrell didn’t have the balls to curse your friend either,” Severus countered. </p>
<p>	“Tell me I was not supposed to aim for the dark lord being set on fire my first year at Hogwarts as a muggleborn.”</p>
<p>	“You came close enough that you got him to stop cursing Harry to save me, and he was completely confused on how you possibly knew I was death eater. I think it caused a meeting to occur for like four hours on whether you were a spy placed by Dumbledore to spy on me to spy on Voldemort.”</p>
<p>	Hermione braced herself on the counter while laughter overtook her body. She shook from the force of her amusement. “I’m sorry, please confirm that Tom Riddle thought me a threat when I was a perky, annoying 11-year-old with no knowledge about magic.”</p>
<p>	“It would appear so.”</p>
<p>	Draco came out dressed to the nines with a glance at Hermione. “I didn’t ask yesterday, but do you know whether my father got life, or a sentence, or house arrest?”</p>
<p>	Hermione shook her head. “I was busy getting Rabastan home to actually sit in to hear his case. But, I know Harry was planning on speaking on his behalf for Narcissa since she did save his life.”</p>
<p>	Draco let out a breath. “Maybe after we get wands, we could check with mother.”</p>
<p>	Hermione let out a sigh before moving over to the floo. “Theo, get up.” </p>
<p>	“What do you need?” his voice filtered through with enough distaste to suggest that he was ready to start a fight if it wasn’t something important this early. Draco remembered from Hogwarts that Theo did not like waking up, and certainly didn’t like pointless questions.</p>
<p>	“Do know what Lucius’ sentence was?”</p>
<p>	“I’m going to kill you,” he said.</p>
<p>	“Uhuh, is that before or after you get coffee?”</p>
<p>	“Seriously, I’ll use fire too at this rate.” A deep breath filtered through the flames before Theo’s face appeared in the flames with tears glistening in his eyes through the water. “His father gets house arrest, his father gets to go home and see his son grow up. My father will rot in a jail cell for the rest of his life. But, oh Draco Malfoy’s father gets to stay at his fancy manor of a house. Because his wife did the work of saving the damn boy who lived. Well, my mother will never have that chance because she rests in a grave on a property, and I can’t even tell her that I managed to redeem this family. The most I can say is that I didn’t turn out evil.”</p>
<p>	“Theo,” Hermione whispered. </p>
<p>	“Hermione, your husbands get to go home, because they have you. They have you, and I couldn’t even ask you to represent my father because that would have made it worse when he tried to bite off your hand in the middle of the trial. And he’s an evil person, but he’s my father. He loved me.”</p>
<p>	“Theo,” she said louder. This time a hint of something other than remorse colored her voice, reminding everyone else in the room that she had made it through a war without backing down.</p>
<p>	“And Luna can’t let me see him, because he’s been violent ever since he realized the traitors got to walk. And Blaise moved back to fucking France.”</p>
<p>	“Theo,” she shouted, and his voice died out. “Either say the words or end the call.”</p>
<p>	The fire died abruptly, and Hermione nodded. The air hissed out of her lips, and she raised her wand. She casted a series of rapid fire spells to cool off her anger. Random things like filling the tub with water, then transfiguring it to steam and make a dragon of steam to fly into the mirror. Like causing the flowers outside to bloom more fiercely than they had a mere moment ago. Like changing the color of her robes through every color she could think of before landing on one. </p>
<p>	Finally, she lowered the wand. “Your father is home.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan stared at her with wide eyes. “Umm,” he managed.</p>
<p>	“Not to worry, I didn’t do anything permanent, I try not to when angry.”</p>
<p>	Severus shook his head and held out his arm. “Next time, maybe try something more calming than throwing your magic at the world until something happens. You didn’t even mutter a word.”</p>
<p>	“I don’t throw my magic at the world. I aim it, I just don’t tell it what it has to do, I give it some freedom, and I make sure to never aim it at a person.”</p>
<p>	Draco felt faint, and he grasped at the counter. “Does he hate me?”</p>
<p>	“No. Your father, probably. But, he’ll be fine in another couple hours. He was always going to be inconsolable the day after his father got committed, even though we all knew it would happen.”</p>
<p>	“Why?” Severus asked. “If you knew it was a foregone conclusion, surely so did Mr. Nott. You wouldn’t have given him false hope. You are not so cruel.”</p>
<p>	“Because his father was willing to kill anyone that wasn’t a pureblood. His father was willing to follow the Dark Lord into levels of fanatic support to the extreme. But, he was also the man who bought his son a toy broom at four and sat outside for hours to make sure that his son knew he was loved. He was the man who made sure that around Christmas time, Theo was surrounded by people who cared about him, because he couldn’t bring his mother back from the grave. And Theo will be the first to admit that his father belongs in a cell, but that doesn’t stop him from wishing with all of his heart, that his father could still make it to his birthdays, and see him walk down the aisle one day.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan nodded. “The curse of knowing your twin was willing to destroy your own will in every sense of the word, but that he did it to keep you alive.”</p>
<p>	Hermione inclined her head. “The curse of being the loved one of evil people without being evil yourself.”</p>
<p>	“May we all rest one day without having to know about the evil ones that we are loved by and love in turn.”</p>
<p>	Draco stumbles into a sitting position on a chair. “But doesn’t that make me bad for being so happy my father got off from all of the evil that he’s done?”</p>
<p>	Rabastan wrapped an arm around Draco’s body and pulled him into an embrace. “No, you are not bad for being happy that your father won’t suffer. You are not evil because you still love the ones that are evil, that just makes you human.”</p>
<p>	Hermione leaned her head to drop it on Severus’ shoulder. “Think we’ll get to a point where we have days where one of us doesn’t break down because of the past?”</p>
<p>	“Ask me again tomorrow when we’ve been out of prison for more than a day.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan dragged them to the door and pushed it open. Then, he waved his arms dramatically. “We’ll get better, because we can see the sun shining in the sky. We get to see the stars in the sky, and we can feel the fur of a cat. We might not get there in a day, or a week, or even a month, but we will see the beauty of the world again.”</p>
<p>	Hermione laughed. “And here I thought I’d have to be the optimist of the relationship.”</p>
<p>	Severus gulped. They had shared a bed, but they hadn’t actually discussed whether that’s what they wanted. Whether they wanted to try to grow love from the insanity of how their marriage began, or whether they wanted to cultivate friendship and learn to tolerate each other.</p>
<p>	Rabastan noticed the way that Severus had gone tense next to Hermione and shook his head. </p>
<p>	Draco coughed under his breath. “Hermione, are we in a relationship?”</p>
<p>	“I suppose that depends on your definition. We aren’t exactly romantic, although we are trying to be way more comfortable in each other’s presence than I’d expect from complete frigid couples who are trying the arranged situation like us. At the same time, we are married and living in the same house, I feel like that puts us into a relationship of some sorts, regardless of whether it turns romantic or not.”</p>
<p>	Draco pinched the bridge of his nose. “Only you would compare us to a romantic endeavor.”</p>
<p>	“We are married,” she pointed out. She waited for a moment to see whether any of the rest of them were going to take the clear bait or whether they were going to go back to pretending for a little while that they didn’t need to talk about the fact that the war scarred all of them, and the magic had chosen them to heal each other. Then, she clapped. “Let’s leave to get wands, boys. Grab hold of me, and I’ll apparate us.”</p>
<p>	Severus stared at her for a long moment. “I know you’re capable of side-alonging three people, as you’ve done it to us before, but surely the floo would be easier.”</p>
<p>	Hermione furrowed her brow. She couldn’t really think of a real reason why she wouldn’t just apparate them, because it would get them closer to the wand shop than any floo that they could take. They also wouldn’t meet any crowds of people who wanted to scream at them. “No, I’m pretty confident this will be the easier path.”</p>
<p>	“Most people hesitate before any side-along, Hermione,” Rabastan said. </p>
<p>	“Well, yeah because if you’re not careful, you’ll splice them while trying. But, that’s for people who don’t realize that the easiest way to apparate is to just settle your magic all around you and who you’re taking and allowing it to move in a circle versus moving the actual people.”</p>
<p>	Draco laughed. “Don’t argue with her. Just go with it or say that you don’t want to place that amount of trust in her, and she won’t get offended.”</p>
<p>	“He’s right.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan shrugged. “At this point, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised anytime you bring up something magical that has never been common, or easy, and you do it without blinking an eye. Afterall, your immediate response to finding out that we needed to be married in order to save us was to use an age-old spell for marriage, followed almost immediately by blackmailing the highest official of government into letting you talk to us, which you then managed to also build a prison to get said government to allow you to defend us, saved all of us from soul eating guards with a patronus of a magical creature that was thought extinct, and to top it all off, then got all three of us out of prison without blinking.”</p>
<p>	“And that’s just since you’ve known me, my treasure. Draco and Severus could start going on large amounts of other things I did.”</p>
<p>	Severus nodded almost immediately. “I wish I could say that the first year lighting me on fire was the most insane thing that I knew for a fact that she did to me, but there’s absolutely no way that I could say that with a straight face.”</p>
<p>	Draco tossed his head back with an aborted laugh. “She punched me in third year after holding me at wand point before I could even reach for my wand.”</p>
<p>	“You deserved it.”</p>
<p>	“No doubt, my wife.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan titled his head to stare at Draco. “What on earth did you do at 13 that caused our wife to be angry enough to resort to physical violence?”</p>
<p>	“It might have been a combination of many things, like getting an innocent beast executed for my own mistakes because it hurt me and I could, or making her best friend face his worse fear in the middle of his few happy moments, or it could have been payback for the derogatory term I called her the year before.”</p>
<p>	Hermione smiled. That was one of the first times that Ron had seen her as not just the bookworm that helped them out, but as a member of the Gryffindor house and a friend. And that should hurt, instead it brings her a sort of nostalgia. “I punched you because someone had to remind you that all of the magic in the world wouldn’t save you from me. No amount of your father’s money, or your fancy upbringing. If I wanted to tear you down, I could.”</p>
<p>	Draco snorted. “You would have been his favorite if not for your blood, you know. There are days when you sound so much like some of the things that have been said that I do a double take.”</p>
<p>	Severus tilted his head before shaking it with a pondering expression on his face. “No, she wouldn’t have been his favorite, she’d have been his wife or in a grave. He wouldn’t dare allow someone as bright, as cunning, and as powerful as her to just be a follower, it would have given others the idea that they could have one day equaled him.”</p>
<p>	Hermione curved her mouth into a smile. “I said that to Sirius once, when he was annoying me with his whole you’re so lucky that you became friends with the boy who lived my godson thing. I believe my exact words were something along the lines of, I’m not the lucky one, you are. You have a dark lord that has made this my fight, our fight, because you and your generation lost the war, and yet hope has arrived with a group of children, and that should terrify you. You should be terrified of what will happen when we grow up.”</p>
<p>	“Everyone should be worried about what will happen when your generation finds its feet, because we hurt you,” Rabastan agreed. </p>
<p>	“Can you imagine?” Draco asked. “Theo sitting at the head of the lords and ladies of the noble houses one day, leading them.”</p>
<p>	“Blaise singing on French stage about how when the government becomes corrupt, don’t sit idly by, but stand up and fight them every inch of the way.”</p>
<p>	“Harry Potter teaching the next generation of kids how to overthrow the evils in front of them.”</p>
<p>	“Susan Bones leading the wizagoment into being more just and civil to every citizen.”</p>
<p>	“Hermione Granger standing in front of anyone and everyone who needs a voice with the votes of just about everyone,” Draco replied.</p>
<p>	Hermione’s smile softened and instead of being the rough thing that the rest of them had grown used to for when she wanted to show that she was happy about what was said or amused, but just didn’t have the ability to do more than put on the expression, it was real and genuine happiness. “Draco Malfoy healing the sick and injured like the little boy said in Professor Lupin’s class when he thought no one was listening.”</p>
<p>	“Why were you?”</p>
<p>	“Someone always needs to stand witness to a hope, even if you would never listen to them at that moment, so that one day at least one person can say that they knew what you wanted when you were scared to speak it out loud.”</p>
<p>	Severus casted his eyes over all of them, and he remembered the way that he wanted to help children be just like Draco and Hermione said, only instead he became the villain they were doing these things in spite of. And sorrow crept back into his head.</p>
<p>	Rabastan squeezed Severus’ hand, urging him not to give in to the darkness. Not when they are happy for just a second.</p>
<p>	“I think,” Hermione said, “that when they make me give the speech for winning the race for minister, I will include several people. Harry, of course, because public appeal will love that. McGonagall, because she introduced me to magic in the first place. Then, I’ll say all three of you for holding me up when it would have been so easy to fade into the background rather than healing. And finally, I think I’ll say professor Snape, without whom I wouldn’t have made it.”</p>
<p>	“You can’t say me twice,” Severus stated.</p>
<p>	“Says who. Who makes the rules, and if I’m going to win the election who says I can’t change it. And I’ll say you once as my husband, the man that I saved, and the one who helped me as an adult. But, I also need to honor who you were when I was a child, because you were an awful teacher, but a damned good spy, and that’s what kept all of us alive long enough to win anything.”</p>
<p>	Draco nodded, seeing exactly where Hermione was going. “When it would have been easy to give in and choose one side or another instead of constantly walking a line between two people who would have killed you without second thought more than once, you chose to keep fighting for both so that you could provide aid to the order without which they wouldn’t have won. No one else was willing and able, so you get credit for that.”	</p>
<p>	“Even when I hurt people to do it?”</p>
<p>	“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.”</p>
<p>	Severus blinked at Hermione. “Did you just quote Spock at me?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.” </p>
<p>	“I’m going to assume that’s a muggle thing, and instead plead with all of you to stop this, and teleport us to get wands, please,” Rabastan interrupted.</p>
<p>	Hermione laughed, but she let her magic run across the connections to her body. She didn’t allow it to leave a blanket protection around her most of the time, anymore. She didn’t have to cast a constant shield charm if her magic was already in place, she just had to see or hear or feel the spell coming. </p>
<p>	Her magic took a liking to each of her husbands, as it took no time at all for it to realize that she wanted it to cover all of them, so she didn’t have to worry about making sure all of them stepped from the magic with all their parts. Then, she teleported them straight to the alley behind Ollivander’s. </p>
<p>	Theo was leaning against the wall with five cups of coffee floating next to him. He sent one to each of them. “Wanted to apologize for being a git this morning. And I knew where you were going to be.”</p>
<p>	Hermione fought down her initial response to immediately reassure him that he owed her no apology for being upset. That was always within his right as a friend of hers, but this apology wasn’t directed at her, and she shouldn’t be the one to respond.</p>
<p>	Draco glanced up at Theo before sipping his coffee. “Any friend of Hermione’s should be one of mine, so no apology is necessary. Neither one of us was thinking in the clearest of manners this morning.”</p>
<p>	Severus extended a hand. “He’s right, you are of course welcome to rant to us about the injustices of this world, just don’t be surprised when we start one upping you on the intensity.”</p>
<p>	Theo shook his old professor’s hand with ease. “Oh, I’m friends with Hermione. Don’t bet on being able to one up me, she has taught me more about injustices just by sheer osmosis that I could probably start listing ones that even you hadn’t thought about before.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan knew of him, but not him. He had never been without the mind control being so heavy on his mind that he wouldn’t have been able to do much more than know that he’s seen the face before on rare occasions. Still, the rest of them seemed to wish to be civil to the man without much pause. “Nice to meet you,” he said.</p>
<p>	Theo exchanged a quick glance with Hermione. “Wow, they mind-wiped you good, didn’t they? I am Theo Nott, a pureblood of the Nott family, who became friends with your wife way back when those death eaters got arrested for the ministry attack.”</p>
<p>	“Did I know you?” </p>
<p>	“No,” Theo replied. “Well, we’ve met, but we weren’t close, and you never did anything to me, if that’s what you were worried about.” Then, he turned his whole body to Hermione. “Luna’s probably going to show up here whenever it is that she seems to believe she needs to.”</p>
<p>	“What’d she say?”</p>
<p>	“Something about how the core is out of order because of the war, and that while the wand maker has good intentions, he will bind the magic by means of not knowing better.”</p>
<p>	“For her, that’s almost clear,” Hermione drawled. </p>
<p>	“Oh, that wasn’t the end of that particular conversation. She went on to tell me that Hercules wasn’t even looking in the right place. That the little toy dragon doesn’t have a clue on what he wants compared to just what he needs.” Theo bit his tongue before continuing to keep himself from laughing. “And she wanted you to know that foolish wand waving aside, that he should never be handed a dragon, he’ll break the toy.”</p>
<p>	Hermione rubbed her face with a hand. “You got any ideas on what all that meant.”</p>
<p>	“Pretty sure Draco is the little toy dragon, and that the foolish wand waving man refers to Severus. As for what any of that means, who the hell knows with Luna?”</p>
<p>	Draco furrowed his brow. He had heard her before when she was in his dungeon. She was never quite clear about anything, but usually she didn’t lie or bend the truth. She just didn’t see anything in the world the same way that they did. “Severus, do me a favor and don’t try any wands with a dragon heart core, okay?”</p>
<p>	“As you wish.”</p>
<p>	“Why?” Rabastan asked.</p>
<p>	“Because Luna knows things, and I don’t particularly want to be injured today, which I’m pretty sure will happen without question if Severus picks up those types of wands anywhere where I’m in the vicinity.” </p>
<p>	Rabastan narrowed his eyes. “Is she a seer?”</p>
<p>	“Not in a traditional way,” Theo answered. “She’s not really anything, she doesn’t fit into any box. But, she has been known to get under the nerves of the most calm people and reassure the most nervous.”</p>
<p>	“She was not a fun student to try to teach,” Severus said.</p>
<p>	Hermione pushed Theo. “Unless you’re planning on watching us find wands or admitting the end to the game you and Luna have chosen to embark on, get out.”</p>
<p>	Theo bowed low. “Well, I have no intentions of the latter, but I am planning on working on that today, so I’m afraid I must leave you. Lord Lestrange, should you ever need a friend because you do not know which memories are yours alone and which are there because of actions you had no control of, you are welcome in my home with all the protections of that friendship.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan turned to Hermione the second he was out of earshot. “Is he aware of what he just offered?”</p>
<p>	“Something similar to what I offered him. I told him that if the day ever came that he could not live with allowing his father to rot that he could call on my friendship, and I would help him escape with his father with no one knowing that they needed to be on the lookout for the two of them. He offered you a place where no one would be able to lay claim to you, not even me, should you ask him to protect you from me.”</p>
<p>	Draco let out a shaky breath. “There are friends that you would have done anything to protect aren’t there?”</p>
<p>	“Many of them. There is a reason I laid in your ballroom getting tortured until the others came up with a better plan with no hint of resentment on my face. I will take the pain for a lot of people, you included now.”</p>
<p>	Draco nodded. “Then, let’s get wands.”</p>
<p>	They all entered the shop side by side. Ollivander smiled at them. “Who will go first?”</p>
<p>	Draco stepped forward, because while he trusted Severus not to try to injure him, he didn’t trust Ollivander to not try to slip something into his hands. </p>
<p>	Ollivander furrowed his brow. “Well, let’s try the match to your old one first, hmm. 10 inches, unicorn hair, and hawthorn wood.”</p>
<p>	Draco picked up the wand from the box and gave the wand a small swish motion to see what happened. He was not surprised when the box in front of him blows back and hits the shelf with a thud. “Unfortunately, I’m afraid the innocence of a unicorn no longer suits me.”</p>
<p>	“Not the innocence that doesn’t match the toy, it is the fact that the toy no longer believes there is such a thing as innocence.”</p>
<p>	Draco doesn’t turn, but then he doesn’t have to. Between the cryptic words and the faint voice that he had gotten used to in the past week, he knew full well that Luna had walked into the shop and was leaning by the far wall. “Hello, Luna.”</p>
<p>	“Tell the shopkeeper that you should try your namesake.”</p>
<p>	Draco smiled at Ollivander who was staring in shock at them all. “Something with a draconic core, please.”</p>
<p>	“No offense, Mr. Malfoy, but a dragon heartstring would not suit your magic.”</p>
<p>	Hermione glanced over at Ollivander with a furrowed brow, clearly trying to see what he was thinking. The Slytherin motto didn’t always remind people of dragons, but that wouldn’t effect his magic, but perhaps the marriage would. “Use the dragon’s breath, you have a few.”</p>
<p>	“I have a 10 ½ inch yew wans with dragon’s breath,” he offered as he ducked under the different shelves to try to find that wand.</p>
<p>	Draco tossed an annoyed glance at Hermione but took the offered wand. This was something that was generally done alone for practical reasons of not standing there all-day trying wands based off of other’s suggestions. He was fully expecting for the box to blow up at him or at Ollivander again, when he flicked the wand. Instead, the box floated gently over to him and settled in his hands.</p>
<p>	Luna coughed lightly to avoid laughing at the expression of awe on his face.</p>
<p>	“Of course,” Ollivander said gleeful. “Now, I should warn you that being both yew and a rare core, this wand is pricey.”</p>
<p>	“Price is of no concern,” Rabastan drawled.</p>
<p>	“Of course, of course,” he replied. “Now, will this be the only wand for you all today?”</p>
<p>	Rabastan stepped forward. “Alas, it would appear we are planning on adding a tiny fortune to your wealth on this day, all of us are in need of new wands.”</p>
<p>	“Not all of you shall leave with what you wish,” Luna commented darkly from her position which drew Hermione’s glare over to her once more.</p>
<p>	“The Lady Lovegood may yet be correct, but all of us will be trying wands,” Rabastan corrected with a wave of his hand. His air of confidence still inspired the man to move with haste. Most were used to the pureblood lord getting exactly what he wanted.</p>
<p>	“Of course, it has been many years since I have given you your first wand, what wood and core was it? Length changes most drastically as one ages, so I won’t put much stock on yours staying anywhere near the same after this many years.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan offered the man a grim smile. “Given that wand was broken by myself in a fit of rage to try to avoid having to do the bidding of other wizards holding me under duress. I doubt that the magic that drew me to it would remain even partially correct.”</p>
<p>	Ollivander nodded. “Something standard, then. Let’s try oak, 9 inches, with a nice unicorn core. The mind control might have added an air of innocence to your magic.”</p>
<p>	Luna’s wand was out the second that Rabastan flicked the wand, and her shield covered the majority of the shop before the explosion blew him backwards into his wife’s arms. Her eyes locked on Ollivander. “The guard should not have better knowledge than a man in his specialty. Old age has rattled your intelligence. You should never guess with older wizards and wands, when they have the control to potentially explode something if the magical energies don’t agree,” she snapped.</p>
<p>	Hermione wrapped her arm around Rabastan with a grin to Ollivander. They’d pay the man for his creation of the wands, but she didn’t trust him to choose on the best of days, let alone on days like this. She’s rather bet on her own intuition, and she admitted that her knowledge of magical cores was shaky at best.</p>
<p>	“What would you know about wands, missy?” Ollivander asked.</p>
<p>	“Enough to know that you’re better at making them than matching them.” Her eyes turned to gaze at Rabastan as if she could look into his soul. He’d feel her if she tried to slip into his mind and read his thoughts, but she didn’t need to. He doubted that she ever had to.</p>
<p>	The folds near her eyes wrinkled in distaste as she pursed her lips in pursuit of her answer. “The tree with curves, Hercules. He has to be able to bend. The core needs to be something elegant, something regal, worthy of a king.”</p>
<p>	Hermione snorted. “Great. Willow wood with a griffin’s feather,” she clarified, never moving her arms.</p>
<p>	“How?”</p>
<p>	“Don’t bother worrying about my company,” Rabastan interjected fluidly. “Your job is to get the wands that we need, charge us for them, and then let us leave peacefully.”</p>
<p>	“Of course, sir. I’m looking at my inventory, and there is an 11 inch, a 12 inch, and a 7 ¾ inch wand, which would you like?”</p>
<p>	“11,” Severus answered.</p>
<p>	Ollivander’s eyes snapped up to the man who had thus far been silent. “Do you have some hidden expertise as well potion’s master?”</p>
<p>	“No, but that would be my assumption based on the strength of the reaction last time. I am quite good at judging reactions like this, a potion’s master has to be.” </p>
<p>	Ollivander seemed to accept this answer as he handed over the wand with no more comments. </p>
<p>	Rabastan flicked the wand over towards the corner. The wall picked itself back up from the last explosion and tidied up. He grinned at the way the magic slipped over his skin and once more felt like an extension of himself. “I think this would be a good fit.”</p>
<p>	Severus turned to Luna with a raised eyebrow. If she was going to be helpful it would be nice to know before they started to rely on the wand maker’s expertise when it came to the trauma of war on magic. Very few people ever had to buy new wands after trauma and rather bonded their old wands to them, but then most weren’t considered evil for a while.</p>
<p>	Luna shook her head. “I’ve given you what I could. I know that the bat will injure the dragon if he uses anything made with a dragon, but I can’t tell you what will work. I can almost see you needing to bend like Rabastan did, but that wouldn’t work. It would fit your magic, but it would confine you.”</p>
<p>	Severus closed his eyes before staring at Ollivander. “What would you suggest for me?”</p>
<p>	“Being wandless,” Ollivander muttered. “You may have been forgiven for your crimes, but I’ve seen what you’ve done to students under your care.”</p>
<p>	“Watch how you speak,” Hermione said, her eyes meeting his with a stare that had him backing up. “For some reason, everyone always seems afraid of the three of them, but they aren’t the ones who you should be scared of. I am.”</p>
<p>	“Mrs. Granger, you are a formidable opponent, but you have a moral compass. Can you say the same for your husbands?”</p>
<p>	Luna snorted. “I’ve watched her in battle, she has less than the three of them. And she defends them as a lioness would defend her mate, and as you should know Hercules never lost a battle.”</p>
<p>	Hermione grinned at Luna and leaned against Draco, propping herself up on his shoulder with a stare at Ollivander, such that he should be absolutely terrified right now. “Darling, don’t forget that dragon cores don’t suit you.”</p>
<p>	Ollivander set down a simple wand on the table. “Let us start back with the basics, shall we. Oak, unicorn hair, and 10 inches. Shouldn’t cause a violent reaction as it is the most common of all of the types out there.”</p>
<p>	Severus flicked the wand, and his magic wouldn’t even come to his call. With this wand, he couldn’t reach his magic at all, and he barely contained his desire to retch up his breakfast from the fear from the cuff that it would be permanent. </p>
<p>	Luna softened her gaze, and her eyes turned over to Ollivander. “May I browse your shelves?”</p>
<p>	“Knock yourself out.”</p>
<p>	The next three wands that Severus tried were the same, and the panic was clawing at him. The only thing keeping him from actually screaming out in pain was the fact that Hermione kept slipping her hand into his and calling to his magic. It came at her request, and he knew from this morning that he could do magic just as easily. </p>
<p>	Hermione didn’t say a word when a dragon core wand was set in front of Severus, because it was his decision to make. They both knew that this would allow his magic to reign free, but both of them also knew that it would cause Draco pain, although the form of that pain was currently unknown. </p>
<p>	Severus closed his eyes when the wand was set in front of him. The curse of being alive was that choices were always shitty. “I won’t try a dragon core,” he said.</p>
<p>	“Even when your magic refuses to come to you for anything else?”</p>
<p>	Luna shushed him from behind the stacks of wands. “Hush, let Hades must always demand a price for denying the dead their burial in peace, and he was denied his.”</p>
<p>	“What is she on?” Ollivander screamed. </p>
<p>	“She doesn’t see the world like the rest of us, and if you hurt her, I’ll kill you,” Hermione said. Her eyes portrayed just how serious she was. “My husbands have asked me to hold restraint when it comes to defending their honor, but my friends have asked no such thing of me. And if you hurt them, there is no corner you could hide in. I defeated an immortal dark lord for the same crime, don’t think that you would be any more difficult.”</p>
<p>	Luna smiled at Hermione, as she walked back around the shelf and handed a box to Severus. “Something that compliments all of the souls that forced Hades to release his control. You aren’t based only on your marriage, but also on the hero of the story, and the fatality of the villain. Basilisk tooth core, cocobolo wood, and a strict 12 ½ inches.”</p>
<p>	Severus reached for the wand that Luna had selected, and he waved his wand. This time his magic settled around them all in a dazzling show of lights, and he smiled at Luna. “You have my gratitude.”</p>
<p>	“I shouldn’t. One day you’ll realize why you had to have this wand, and you’ll hate me for bearing the news. But for today, you shall be happy and that will be enough.”</p>
<p>	Luna walked over to the door. “You shouldn’t look here, Hermione. You’ll never find what you’re looking for buried under all of the rubbish that they have, you aren’t from our world, don’t find your magic here.” Then, she left with her cryptic warnings still stuck in all of their heads. All of them know better than to just ignore Luna when she’s like this. That could become a mistake worse than death. </p>
<p>	Hermione glanced at all of the wands on the wall and sighed. She had wanted to get rid of Bellatrix’s wand for many reasons, but Ollivander was right. The wand chose the wizard, and hers had chosen to stick by her during a war. Without crafting something perfected for her magic, she wouldn’t accept another wand, and she was too much of a control freak to even consider letting Ollivander handle creating her wand. “Rabastan, pay the man, so we get home.”</p>
<p>	“No wand?” he confirmed as he started handing Ollivander a healthy stack of galleons. </p>
<p>	“No,” she whispered. </p>
<p>	Draco caught her hand in his and ran his fingers up and down her palm. “If you want to borrow mine, you’re welcome to it.”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded accepting the gift for what it was. She’d brainstorm about what to do about things that aren’t her core when they got home. Particularly length, that would be her struggling point. But, Luna was hardly ever wrong, and she was probably currently giving even more information that wouldn’t make sense to an outsider to someone random on the street because she’s seeing things in the clouds, or in the bushes, or on some occasions in other’s eyes. </p>
<p>	Severus paused at seeing Hermione’s contemplative stare and shook his head. “Contrary to your beliefs, wife, you do not have to master every single art of magic to belong to our world.”</p>
<p>	“I hold no place in your world,” she replied instantly. The words ingrained into her over the years. “I am an outsider with the privilege of seeing you, but not being one of you.”</p>
<p>	“I hate to be the one to break this to you,” Rabastan said as he wrapped an arm around her and guided her out of the shop. “but magic bonded us as Draco, Blaise, and Theo have no doubt told you, which makes you a member of the newest nobility of our world. You don’t just belong here, you are ranking title belonging here. Your children will be pureblood, no question. Your blood is pure, no one can deny that without also denying magic itself, so you belong here.”</p>
<p>	“That’s not how genetics work.”</p>
<p>	“But it is how magic works.”</p>
<p>	Severus paused as he realized that all of them had gotten themselves entwined again in a holding of arms, or hands, or other embraces, which was going to complicate him getting them home. He was not like Hermione, he couldn’t apparate three people safely with himself.</p>
<p>	Hermione caught his eyes and winked. Before, her magic settled over all of them, and they were in their living room parlor. She smiled. “Just because I don’t think I’ll find my wand in Ollivander’s shop and don’t have a new fancy tool to control my magic, doesn’t mean I have any less control than I did this morning.”</p>
<p>	Severus startled for a moment, then he shook his head. “It will take me a moment, before I get used to the fact that you can handle that much pressure on your magic without any hesitation.”</p>
<p>	“I would argue that the reason why most of you hesitate is because the Dark Lord wanted you to. Some people never grasp magic to its fullest extent, but that can not be said of any of the death eaters whether they were willing or not during their time. Still, none of you reach for the stars with your magic. None of you command the world around you to follow your will and worry about the spell afterwards. All of you still follow the rules.”</p>
<p>	“And you think he encouraged that?” Draco asked.</p>
<p>	“Of course, having followers who could quite possibly kill you if you pushed them far enough is never a good strategy.”</p>
<p>	Severus met her eyes. “You have the same mannerisms at times. You both believe that magic is not just something that you can use but a part of you. You both believe that there isn’t a thing that can’t be done as long as you focus on it with all that you are. You both would willingly kill for what you believe.”</p>
<p>	Hermione smiled. “You might have hated him, but Sirius said something to me when we were sitting out of the order meetings that stuck with me. He said that the world should be incredibly grateful that I was not born around the time that Voldemort was, and that Voldemort had chosen blood purity as a means to recruit more people. Because if I wasn’t being hunted by essence of being alive, I would have been able to be converted.”</p>
<p>	“I would have thought he’d hate you for that.”</p>
<p>	“He would have done it too. If that had been the price to pay for keeping Regulus alive, Sirius would have paid it. If that had been a deal made to keep James and Lily safe, he would have done it. He never would have been a blood purist, and he never would have hurt his own children, but if Voldemort had offered him a way to save the people he loved, Sirius would have done it.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan raised an eyebrow. “How can you be so sure?”</p>
<p>	“We are more similar than most people give us credit for. He was a Black, I was a muggleborn. Neither one would have fit the social group at the start of everything, yet we both got invited anyway, and there’s very little either of us wouldn’t have done if it meant those people were safe from harm.”</p>
<p>	Draco nodded. “So, here’s a different question for you, Hermione, why does Luna believe that your wand won’t be in Ollivander’s shop?”</p>
<p>	“Because my magic changed with this marriage, so did my hopes, my goals, and quite possibly a few of my moral compasses that said I was fighting for the right side of that war. Turns out I was just fighting for the side that didn’t want to kill me, not so sure that made us the good guys anymore. Anyway, my magic has already told me what type of magic core I need.”	</p>
<p>	“A featherfaun,” Rabastan said the disbelief evident in his tone.</p>
<p>	“I got the feather when I was just a little girl. No more than six, standing in the park trying against all odds to keep people I didn’t know from slipping towards death, and a magical creature came to save me from spending all of my magic when I didn’t even know what it was.”</p>
<p>	“Why were you trying?”</p>
<p>	“Because they weren’t supposed to die that day, I was. The tree trunk should have fallen on me, and my magic would have protected me, but they didn’t know magic was real. They didn’t know that there was something in me that I could have used to save myself, and they pushed me out of the way. And they didn’t deserve to die when that happened.”</p>
<p>	Draco raised an eyebrow as he raised his wand to start the tea and bring the cups towards them. “Where on Earth were your parents?”</p>
<p>	“Watching too far away to get to me. They didn’t think the tree would collapse.” </p>
<p>	Severus paused. “It could have been an intentional attack.”</p>
<p>	“More than likely, I saw my name on several prophecies when we broke into the ministry. Apparently, a normal life was never going to be in the cards for me.”</p>
<p>	“What will you choose for a wood for your wand?”</p>
<p>	“That’s a great question,” Hermione said, leaning into Rabastan’s touch to show that she knew exactly who had asked that question. “I haven’t decided yet. It’ll need to be a hardwood, not a softwood. Wands can be either, but at least one thing in my wand needs to be steady, and I think its clear to see that it won’t come from the typical core, or likely the length.”</p>
<p>	“You think your length will be large?” Draco asked. </p>
<p>	“Likely, I’m expecting that once I start crafting it will come to me and the base that is full will be a traditional length, but I’ll have a deep urge to make sure that the point is actually sharp and thin, where the magic is fully at my discretion, not just coming out of the tip in waves.”</p>
<p>	Severus nodded. “That is more traditional for purebloods. It has gone out of style recently, but I have theories that it probably had to do with Grindelwald having such great control over his actions in that fashion.”</p>
<p>	Hermione snorted out a bit of laughter. “As if Dumbledore and Grindelwald weren’t lovers. As if you were going to blacklist one and all the things he stood for, you didn’t need to get rid of both.”</p>
<p>	“Pardon?”</p>
<p>	“The things you learn when people don’t think that they need to keep their guard up around you. The histories that you can get from other countries while passing it off as learning about other magical cultures. The alliances that you can form, by agreeing with simple opinions such as that none of them ever thought that Grindelwald was alone until Arianna died.”</p>
<p>	“I’ve heard that name before.”</p>
<p>	“You should, Grindelwald wasn’t the only one with a grudge about that issue. As I recall, Tom thought that she was in need of saving and protection as well.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan fell on the couch and pulled Hermione with him. “Are you telling me that you believe that Tom Riddle became Voldemort because of Dumbledore?”</p>
<p>	“Undoubtedly. I’m more curious on whether it was because Dumbledore did nothing when Tom was being mistreated in the orphanage, because Dumbledore couldn’t ever believe an eleven year old child capable of good deeds, or because of whatever happened with Arianna.”</p>
<p>	Hermione turned to tuck herself further into Rabastan as she curled into the couch. “Anywhere else we need to go today?”</p>
<p>	“None that can’t wait for a different day,” Severus said. “You should go with a cherry wood.”</p>
<p>	“What?”</p>
<p>	“It’s a hardwood, but not quite as hard as some of the others, which will still give you the flexibility that you want, while not making that the main quality of the wood. Plus, it looks nice and matches your Gryffindor house colors.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan shook his head. “Are we just taking for granted that she’s planning on making her own wand?”</p>
<p>	“I can do it while we discuss where we go from here.”</p>
<p>	“Not today though,” Draco said.</p>
<p>	“Not today,” Hermione agreed. Today, they were trying to be as human as possible towards each other, just praying that doesn’t end terribly by the end of everything. </p>
<p>	Which is how she found herself sitting cross-legged in their living area with a piece of cherry wood, her featherfaun feather, and her other wand prepped to try to transition all of this into a wand, while all three husbands had multiple documents, papers, and designs all around them at the table, only a week later. She should no better than to say anything that resembles a plan in this household, somehow all of them were too stubborn for that. 	</p>
<p>	The last week had been one of the best since she was 13 years old. There was no war that needed to demand her attention. Her best friend wasn’t in the middle of some plot that someone wanted to tear down, and she had a nice home to come back to at the end of the day. They talked most days, but left each other to their own devices, but they had agreed that today they needed to figure out where they saw the future. Their future. </p>
<p>	“Okay, so do we want to talk about finances, jobs, or houses first?” Rabastan said.</p>
<p>	Hermione tossed him a grateful smile. She had lost most of her courage to start these conversations, somewhere down the line of staying with them. She didn’t know how to start a conversation that was practically all of them admitting that they were tied together with no living clue how to be a family, let alone be a respectful one.</p>
<p>	Draco grinned at Hermione’s smile. He had grown used to the way that Hermione showed gratitude with genuine expressions, and none of the rest of them admitted that they craved the way that she smiled. The other day Hermione and him had sat their NEWTs, because neither one of them could see themselves being okay with living in Hogwarts for another year where they had to be under watch and rules. They had grown up too hard and fast for that. “Jobs,” he said, “that might influence what we talk about in the finances section, although between the three of us, we could easily live a lifetime without ever having to worry about it. Not that its acceptable to do so, but the point stands.”</p>
<p>	Hermione started the process of accessing the featherfaun’s natural magic without picking up her old wand. That would make sure the core was more in tune with her, but she kept her ears open for Draco’s decision. “I’ll go into politics. Kingsley has been begging me to since the end of the war, and as he pointed out there’s only so far my justice can be enforced as a member of the golden trio, I could do more from a position of power.”</p>
<p>	Severus nodded. “Wizgamemot or Minister of Magic?”</p>
<p>	“Susan Bones sits on the Wizgamemot,” both Draco and Hermione said at the same time.</p>
<p>	“Two members of the same generation without breaking any rules,” Severus replied dryly. </p>
<p>	“Wrong message,” Hermione countered. “Anything that I could say to that body of old wizards determined to make sure that those in power stay in power while denying others their magic. Susan would stand behind every change I ever suggested. Thus, if I’m going to try to fix this world, I’d be better in the minister position.”</p>
<p>	“I’ll ask my father for any assistance he can give.” Draco’s eyes got a bit harder. Ever since he found out that his father still despised muggles, their relationship had been strained. He had thought after what Hermione had done for him, Lucius would be grateful and willing to see the rest of the situation, but that was too much to ask from a man who did hate muggles enough to wage a war. “He will likely ask for your vocal support in return.”</p>
<p>	“I can play your father.”</p>
<p>	Draco raised an eyebrow. </p>
<p>	Hermione shrugged, careful to not upset the core she was creating to do so. “Your father thinks that he’s got everyone in his corner. He thinks that because he’s confined to his house instead of a jail cell, that it proves that people still care about his opinions. And some of them do, but he’ll ask for my support in his rehabilitation efforts, which I will give. After all, it was so nice of the Lord Malfoy to support my venture into politics because magic decided I was just as worthy as his son, dismantling blood purity in its essence.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan laughed. “You’re going to drive that man into an early grave.”</p>
<p>	“I’ll be sure to wear black at the funeral.”</p>
<p>	“No killing my dad,” Draco whined. </p>
<p>	Severus shook his head. “I won’t let Hermione just let your father die because of her actions. That would be cruel and unusual. Now, tell us what you want.”</p>
<p>	Draco pouted for a second, before turning a reflective look towards the ceiling. “When I was younger, I thought that being a healer would be a fantastic career where I could help people as I was without needing to worry about the prejudice because they would never expect me to break the oath I took as a healer.”</p>
<p>	Hermione jerked her head to stare at him. “You really didn’t want to hate me, did you?”	</p>
<p>	“No.”</p>
<p>	Severus inclined his head. He had known early on that Draco hadn’t wanted to hate anyone, but he knew that if it got back to others that he wasn’t properly elite, that his mother would have been disappointed and his father would have potentially been abusive. There had never been a good way for him to avoid prejudices. “Okay, so we want a minister and a healer. I think I would like to be able to redeem myself by being the professor I would have liked to be all along.”</p>
<p>	Hermione didn’t grace that with a response. He was one of the few professors that she had actually tried to impress. She had to work to figure out the information rather than it being handed to her on a silver platter. The wood started to form around her core as she picks up the old wand to manage the spell work as delicate at this. </p>
<p>	Rabastan tossed a glance at Hermione. “I certainly won’t offer any complaints if you choose to go back to the profession that you always wanted, however you might start many fights with both me and Hermione, if you constantly degrade what you’ve done. Sure, you weren’t able to offer the best teaching that you could have, but you did the best you could.”</p>
<p>	“And you still managed to be a better professor than some of them,” Hermione muttered. “Granted, given one of your competitors was a literal ghost, I don’t know whether that will help you at all.”</p>
<p>	“Who better to teach history than a ghost who existed throughout it,” Severus countered.</p>
<p>	“Someone with half a brain,” Draco retorted immediately. </p>
<p>	“Preferably who doesn’t have nearly as many biases and actually strives to learn more about the history that he lived through rather than the textbook accountings of that history with personal stories about how he was happy inside his cottage with his wife, or in Hogwarts teaching a grateful bunch of students,” Hermione added.</p>
<p>	Rabastan cracked a full smile as he stared at Severus. “Looks like they’ve got you beat on this one. You were a much better professor than a ghost.”</p>
<p>	“Name another one that you think I could be rated as definitely better than.”</p>
<p>	“Umbridge.” Hermione’s magic shuttered at the name, the rage bubbling to the surface wanting her to finish the job that she had started. She really should know better than to say that name.</p>
<p>	“Quirrell,” Draco said.</p>
<p>	“Trelawny.”</p>
<p>	“Lockhart.”</p>
<p>	“Crouch Jr.”</p>
<p>	Draco winked at Severus. “And arguments could be made that he was better than Hagrid.”</p>
<p>	“He was,” Hermione stated, her head jerking up to meet Draco’s eyes in confusion.</p>
<p>	“Really the Gryffindor golden girl is going to claim that the bat of the dungeons was better than Dumbledore’s favorite.”</p>
<p>	“Hagrid is a good man, that does not make him a good teacher. He focused on obscure facts without going over the basics needed for the field, and he didn’t always look after the students as he should if he was going to introduce us to dangerous creatures. Not to mention not looking out to avoid student’s trauma when introducing them to threstrals.”</p>
<p>	“And Severus?” Rabastan goaded. He was curious at this point just how far Hermione would go in his defense with how vehement she was at the moment.</p>
<p>	“He wasn’t kind, and he certainly wasn’t fair. But, he never endangered the students. Sometimes, he’d threaten pets but never actual students. Point over Hagrid, bless him. He always targets muggleborns and Gryffindors, but only when we gave him something to go after. He wouldn’t pick on us without an opening as part of his role pretending to be a spy for Voldemort on Dumbledore. He couldn’t be rude with no reason. Point over Hagrid, who really would have let Draco suffer as a punishment for sneaking after hours even when he was just 11.”</p>
<p>	Draco paused for a moment, before he leaned over and draped his head over Severus’ lap. “Did you hear our wife? She says you protected me more than the light ever did.”</p>
<p>	Hermione huffed. “No, he didn’t. He was with the light, so it would be impossible for him to have done more than the light because he is a part of the light. Now, I would say that he did the most out of anyone on the side of the light to keep us safe.”</p>
<p>	Severus jerked his head to stare at her. “No, I didn’t. I know its easy to get lost in the memories, but Hermione, I am not that good of a person. I did not save you compared to everyone else.”</p>
<p>	“No, I saved myself. You gave me the time I needed to be able to save myself and then save you later.” She took a deep breath, casted a stasis spell on the new wand, and turned to face Draco and Severus completely. “I was 11, a bratty know it all with few friends. You gave me the knowledge to know when to sit down and not flaunt my knowledge to the world. I was 11 with a plan to save everyone from the monster who wanted to steal the philosopher’s stone. You gave me a riddle to give me a potion to save my friend from death in a chess game where not all of us were meant to win. I was 12 and did a potion that should have been too difficult for students three years ahead of me in a bathroom. You made sure I didn’t suffer for the consequences of not doublechecking that it was human hair. I was 12 and thought that I would be willing to die if it meant that I could save the others. You saved me with an antidote that probably got you tortured once Tom rose once more. I was 13 with a time turner and a decision to learn everything I bloody could because my best friend would not walk into darkness alone. You made sure that I had enough pepper up potion on my desk to get through those restless days. Because I know Dumbledore wouldn’t have thought of that, and Minerva doesn’t have the skill with potions or the heart to steal them. I was 14, and I went to the ball with a man that actually valued my intelligence, and I had to work to keep my best friend alive in a tournament that no one his age should have been in. You left the books I needed on the wrong shelves in the library with where you directed me for potion’s essays. You made sure that I didn’t go made trying to convince my magic to come to the surface in spells that weren’t taught in class, instead I got them from a book in a room with no help. But, you gave me a book, so I didn’t rip myself apart to force my will on this world. I was 15, and there was no one left to help us. There was no other member of the light that we could have gotten a message through to. And you sent aid for us. If you had not, I would have died on the floor of the ministry at 15 with a curse on my lips and a way to get the others out. That would have been a good enough life for me, because I would have done what I could. I was 16 and I was done playing by the rules. I was 16 and you killed the man manipulating me, and I picked up the fairy tale he left me, and I came up with a plan to kill an immortal madman. I was 17, and I married you to save you from death, because you saved me, and I would not let the magic take you. Not while I was still living. Not while I still had some strength left.”</p>
<p>	Severus flinched at most of her words. “Hermione, please, those were not actions of a good man. They were actions that anyone would have taken.”</p>
<p>	“But you were the one who took them. Dumbledore could have made that stone safe without relying on children to protect it. Dumbledore could have had every professor researching what could be petrifying students, but he gave that task to children. Molly Weasley could have taken Harry in when he was being abused, but she didn’t. Any of the adults could have fought the rules that made Harry have to compete. But, that wasn’t what they did. You were the only one bound to not save us when you could, so you had to get creative to save us, but you did.”</p>
<p>	Draco tilted his head to the side as Hermione pushed herself off of the ground. She walked over to where he was still lying on Severus’ lap, and he silently raised his eyes in a question of what she was doing. </p>
<p>	Hermione ignored Draco entirely. Her nerves were crackling underneath her skin, and if she hadn’t already trained herself to keep her thoughts out of the forefront of her mind, she was sure that Severus would have been able to see right into her soul as she stepped right up next to him. Her hand reached out to cup his cheek, and she turned his eyes to meet hers. “You were a good man,” she swore. Then, she leaned down and pressed her lips to his in a gentle kiss.</p>
<p>	Draco gasped from where he lay underneath her. Of all the ways that he had seen this coming, he can honestly say that he hadn’t been expecting this. </p>
<p>	Severus had met her gaze and had only seen honesty in them. She hid her thoughts, but not her emotions. She believed, so when her lips touched his, he surged up and returned the kiss. He kept it light though, there was no need to make things passionate right away. Not when half of the marriage was currently touching him, and the one not with him was the only one he had any experience with. </p>
<p>	Hermione pulled back with a smile on her face. Then, her eyes betrayed some amount of amusement. She nudged her head in the direction of Rabastan, before she dropped to her knees where she was level with Draco. “Hi,” she said.</p>
<p>	“Hi,” he teased right back with a smile on his face. Then, he reached for her, and she came into his embrace. They were kissing, finally. They had been dancing around the fact that they were married, that this was an insane situation too much to realize that when one of them was scared, they’d seek the other one out for comfort. They forgot to realize that they were in love.</p>
<p>	Severus grinned at the kissing pair over his lap with a fond amusement. Of course they would end up on his lap for this one, because the fates are cruel. He crooked his finger at Rabastan. “Get over here, so I can kiss you,” he called. </p>
<p>	“Why do I have to do the work?” Rabastan teased as he stood and made his way over to stand over Severus.</p>
<p>	“Because I have the other half of our marriage kissing in my lap, and I don’t have the energy to try to move them.” Severus reached for Rabastan though instead of cupping his face, he grabbed his hands and pulled them to his own face. “Kiss me?”</p>
<p>	Rabastan huffed out a laugh, but he leaned down and brought Severus into another kiss. This was their first kiss since Voldemort had risen again, but the passion that always underlaid them was there. Present and wild, so he moved one hand to the back of Severus’ head to keep in positioned where he wanted the man.</p>
<p>	Draco whistled from his position. “How long you two been holding off there?”</p>
<p>	“I’m betting this isn’t their first,” Hermione countered softly. Her legs protested the position, so she moved back until she could feel the couch, then she sprang up where she found herself under Rabastan’s arms and chest as he leaned over Severus. </p>
<p>	Severus broke that kiss with a low moan in his throat. He really didn’t want someone to be on his lap when he was seconds away from getting a hard on with no clue what they were going to do about going further than kissing whenever they felt like it. “I think we might have gotten off topic.”</p>
<p>	“Is this not on topic?” Hermione asked in a tone that reminds them all of the testing way that she challenged Umbridge each class period, and the way that she stood in the court, robes flaring around her daring the world to hurt the ones she chose. “I think this is very on topic for a plan for the marriage and the future,” she said. Then, she pushed herself up with her arms, to press her chest firmly into Rabastan’s as she claims his mouth in a kiss as well.</p>
<p>	“I think our wife is telling us that she’s in charge,” Draco clarified for Severus. He waited until Severus closed his eyes to fight back the frustration to lean forward and peppered kisses across his cheeks until he was hovering over his mouth. “Hi.”</p>
<p>	Severus exhaled loudly, before leaning forward to initiate the kiss himself with Draco. The action gave him some mild comfort with the fact that all of them were in this situation together. No one was more or less prepared than each other to deal with what was currently happening at this rate.</p>
<p>	Rabastan pulled off first, and he glanced over at all of them. “I take that to mean that we’re going to try some romance in our future.”</p>
<p>	Hermione hummed her agreement as she plops back down on the floor to stare at her wand. She needed to finish this before they needed to do anything more. “Something like that. You haven’t told us what you want to do?”</p>
<p>	Rabastan scowled. “I may have tied mine to the idea I had for a home.”</p>
<p>	“Tell us your thoughts, Bast,” Draco said. “None of us are going to judge you for making a plan that’s more in depth. That would go against our nature. “</p>
<p>	Hermione released the status and started filing the wand while trying to focus on what felt right. She knew that she needed a point, but she knew that somewhere in between nine inches and 11 inches was going to be the sweet zone. Still, she could tell that Rabastan was nervous about something in his plan. “No judgement from me, I’m the crazy person who married three people under arrest on a Monday for nothing more than a favor of a friend.”</p>
<p>	“Yeah, I’m not sure you can ever judge anyone for anything ever again.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan took a deep breath. “So, we wanted a large house where all of us could have space and come together as we wanted it. And, we are still a part of the magical Great Britain. So, that means we kind of need to use one of the land plots that we already have. I hate the Lestrange property because well, I was mind controlled there for the first time, and was forced to live with my abusers under mind control there, and honestly I’d prefer if that house no longer existed, and we could raid it for anything that still has positive memories or that one of you would like to have from whatever place that it is. And then we could tear it down. As the heirs it wouldn’t take much to just blow it up and watch it burn for a while. The land would be clear after that, and we could build ourselves a house. A real one for each of us with magic. We’d need supplies, but I’ve heard that they aren’t hard to get delivered. And, we could all have exactly what we want. And a garden. But that would still leave acres and acres of land. And I always wanted to deal with magical creatures and muggle ones. So, I could be a pet shop keeper, and run a sanctuary in our land. If I had someone to help with wards, such as a runes mistress, then it wouldn’t be against the law because they wouldn’t be able to leave the magical bounds into muggles or be a danger to the general public,” he rambled.</p>
<p>	Severus blinked. He had known about the man’s dreams, but he had absolutely no idea that he wanted to burn his old house down to the ground. That seemed so impressive.</p>
<p>	Hermione turned her head to face Rabastan as her wand forms and reforms in front of her. Her eyes blaze with magic as she tilted her head to regard him. “That sounds lovely. We should probably go through everything first, though. And the sanctuary will have to be the last thing on the list to be done.”</p>
<p>	“Of course,” he said. </p>
<p>	Hermione turned her attention back to the wand. She was no longer actively directing the path that the wand was taking. She was letting her magic go wild around the wand as long as it stayed confined in the area for that. She knew that would be the best plan for this.</p>
<p>	The curve of her new wand fell into her hand as it ended in the sharp end as her magic fell around all of them. She grinned at him with a genuine expression of happiness. “Expecto patronum,” she casted. Her Patronus sprang out of her wand and pranced around them, and she fell backwards against the wall. The wand fit her magic much better than Bellatrix’s did.</p>
<p>	Severus stared at the patronus in front of them. “If we’re going to blow up one of the oldest houses to ever exist in this community, should we at least inform the ministry?”</p>
<p>	Hermione waved the wand to get rid of the patronus to focus on the more important things, like apparently making sure that they weren’t about to break any laws, or at least cause the ministry to show up on their door with wands blazing for a fight. Or more accurately, making sure they didn’t have any legal rights to do the former. Because she was itching for another reason to start a fight with the ministry that Kingsley was slowly trying to fix, and she had no patience for the politics of the situation. “Rabastan?”</p>
<p>	“Hmm.”</p>
<p>	“We have legal ownership, yes?”</p>
<p>	“Yes, they have no way to claim that we do not. Even if they could make a decent claim against my own right to the family house, which they can’t. They have nothing against you, and as my wife you have immediate claims to all family households as the Lady Lestrange.”</p>
<p>	Hermione cracked a wide smile as she turned to Severus, but keeping her questions directed at Rabastan since they were talking about his property. “And all belongings inside are family property as defined by pureblood wills, yes?”</p>
<p>	“Indeed, no one who has lived there has ever gone against the wishes of leaving all material possessions to the newest family members at the time of their death.”</p>
<p>	Draco glanced over at Hermione and froze. “Oh, gods. You should not trust anything that comes out of her mouth when she looks like that. She’s getting ready to start a war. I can tell.”</p>
<p>	“Not a war, if they follow their own rules. But, if they push, well I’d be delighted to push back. Because after all, we’re going to raid the house for anything that we might like or want tomorrow. Ooo, we could raid most of our properties for that first, so we know which furniture we need to order and the like.”</p>
<p>	“I think I want to keep the beds from here, and I have no clue how you got them,” Draco added. </p>
<p>	She waved him off. “We can take most of the things in here. Most of them I bought with our money. The ones that were here were covered in dust, and I figured that Harry might one day want to see how his family used to live, so I levitated them all without displacing anything downstairs, and I’ll move it back when we leave.”</p>
<p>	“Why?” Severus could understand not wanting to sleep on the Potter’s stuff, but he couldn’t imagine preserving every inch of dust, so that the younger man could one day walk into his family home and see it as it was meant to be.</p>
<p>	“Because that’s something I wish I could do, but I burned that house down. I wish I could go home, but I have no one to go home to, and the house is ash.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan looked at her with something close to pity in his eyes. He couldn’t imagine having to choose between letting his parents know his name, but be in constant danger or removing himself from their lives forever. “If you have a memory of the house, I can try to replicate it.”</p>
<p>	Hermione blinked back her own tears. “I left most things of my parents in my mind. I left the way their words soothed me, the memories of their love, of us being in parks. But, I took away anything that might identify them from myself as well. Tom Riddle was never going to have that leverage. I burned every road that would lead to it.”</p>
<p>	“Even their taste in furniture,” Severus said as he realized what she meant.</p>
<p>	“Even that, because while it wouldn’t be likely that it would lead to them, it could. The probability was above zero, and I chose to make sure that the chance didn’t have a value above zero.”</p>
<p>	“Brave girl, a true Gryffindor,” Draco announced, as he walked to her side and draped his arms around her. He leaned his head on her shoulder and turned to stare at Rabastan. “So, we go to all of the various houses that we have, we pick up all the stuff we want in the new house, and then we burn an old one to the ground.”</p>
<p>	“The fire would be so delightful,” Hermione whispered. </p>
<p>	“Hey, now, don’t let the flames tempt you, Hermione. You’ve called upon them way too often now,” Severus warned.</p>
<p>	Hermione’s eyes found his, and she flinched away from her own reflection in them. “I did what needed to be done.”</p>
<p>	“That does not mean that you get to stop fighting now.”</p>
<p>	Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, praying that the awful feeling building in her stomach would just disappear, but she knew that it wouldn’t. The fates had already started the second that the fire was mentioned. She was a little bit broken by the war, but that wouldn’t define her. “No, it does not. No matter how much we plead with the fates to allow us something that could be considered a break, they will never listen.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan made a clicking sound with his teeth as he stood up. He whacked Severus over the head with the back of his hand, with barely enough force to do anything more than knock his head forward a little, before settling down next to Draco and Hermione. “They won’t give us a break this close to the war, not this close to all of nightmares coming true. But, they will one day. There will come a day when you wake up with the sun on your face, and you’ll smile because you made it to that day.”</p>
<p>	“How the hell are you the optimist?” Draco asked.</p>
<p>	“Because that’s the only way you survive what I went through with your sanity. You either give up, or you find a place inside yourself that says, this will not be the end of me. This will not be all I’m worth.”</p>
<p>	Severus huffed. “If we’re going to be this bloody emotional, we might as well go nap on our large bed and stop pretending more work will get done.”</p>
<p>	“Don’t have food for later, if we just nap the afternoon away.”</p>
<p>	“Have Bast call one of the many elves just waiting for his call back at his manor to make us some food.”</p>
<p>	Hermione shrugged her shoulders. She didn’t like the lack of rights that the elves had, but she wasn’t about to start that argument with all of them when she didn’t really want to lose any of their touch, or their comfort. “What will happen to them when we burn the house?”</p>
<p>	“Nothing,” Rabastan clarified. “I’ll tell them beforehand, and they’ll probably wait for us either out in the yard, or they’ll go over to other house elf homes to see kin while they wait for my call.”</p>
<p>	Hermione nodded. That would be enough. She had long sense learned that right now, the elves didn’t want to be free. She couldn’t start a fight for creatures that didn’t want to be free. She needed to focus on the ones who did want to be free. Helping the werewolf community no longer be hidden away in plain sight, making sure that the goblins weren’t hurt by a government who wanted to sue them but not support them, and probably whatever requests that Rabastan would have for her with his magical creatures in their sanctuary. </p>
<p>	She blinked as she realized that she was the only one who consistently called him Rabastan. “Do you prefer Bast,” she asked. </p>
<p>	Rabastan shrugged. “That nickname was given from the few people who kept me from constant mind control, so kind of. Rabastan was the monster they made of him, and Bast was the soul of the man that was left under so many layers.”</p>
<p>	“Bast it is, then,” she said. </p>
<p>	Draco propelled the both of them up. “Severus was right, we should take a nap. You’re getting drowsy.”</p>
<p>	“Wand was made,” she said, but she could still feel her magic trying to settle the core before it tried to rip her apart. “Doesn’t mean that the full cost of making the wand has been paid.”</p>
<p>	That’s how for the second time in their marriage, they all found themselves in the same bed. Hermione in the middle of the bed, trying to get the most comfortable amount of warmth tucked into her with complete faith that the others would keep her safe if she didn’t want to wake up for quite some time. Rabastan ended up right next to her this time, with his hands draped over her hips to steady them both from the heavy thoughts plaguing them. Severus propped himself up on the bed with a book, his mind was not tired although his body was, so he made sure that one hand was switching through each of their hair as he flipped the pages of the book. And Draco true to form switched into fancy pajamas and curled up into the embrace of Rabastan as Hermione was already too far out to do much more than grumble as he entered the bed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Our House</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>They build a house and have minor conflict with some of their old friends.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Hermione was double checking all of her extendable bags, certain that if they started taking furniture that something on her charm work or her rune work was going to falter. Because she might have used these bags to hold enough stuff to go on the run for the better part of year, but not to move houses.</p><p>	Draco bounced into the room with his hair all done up. “We’re still good going to my house to pick up some stuff first, right? Mother promised that father would be on his best behavior.”</p><p>	“The man owes Hermione enough that he should just constantly be on his best behavior whenever anything around us is brought up,” Bast drawled. Then, he tossed a crooked smile over to Draco. “Yes, we’re going to your place first.”</p><p>	Hermione threw her hands up. “Draco, are you planning on using your bedroom before we move?”</p><p>	“Not particularly, why?”</p><p>	“Because I’m not going to try to fit everything into a bag. I’ll go crazy trying to pull everything out at a later time, but I can ward the room in like under five minutes, and set up a charm on the empty bag to drop them into the room that way we don’t have to worry about whether we put more into the bag than my magic can hold with a featherweight charm.”</p><p>	Severus turned to her. “How much do you think you could manage?”</p><p>	Hermione shrugged. “Three or four tons, and yes, I know the likelihood of us surpassing my ability is low, but I’d rather not test my theory on that note.”</p><p>	“I’m not judging. I’m merely asking a question.”</p><p>	Hermione nodded as she pushed Draco’s stuff in the bedroom into a corner, so she could have access to the whole room. Her wand carved the runes much easier than Bellatrix’s ever had, but she’s pretty sure that has a small bit to do with the change in shape that she had included when she was carving into the cherry wood. </p><p>	She could hear her husbands talking in the background, and she knew that she didn’t want to have to deal with sorting through things when they got home. She wanted to be able to prep for a life together instead of constantly doing the adult things of preparing for that life. Her patronus landed on the ground next to her, and she curved her lips into a smile. </p><p>	Her patronus took off into a run towards the others in the house to leave, and she didn’t ask what her magic thought it was doing. Faith was enough for her magic to do what it wants, because she knew better than to ask questions.</p><p>	Severus’ hands land on her shoulders as he took in the runes decorating the walls now, as her magic seals them. “Who’d you call?”</p><p>	“No clue.”</p><p>	“Anyone ever told you that you break more rules than a normal witch.”</p><p>	“I’m sure someone did, but I ignore them. They don’t get to tell me what I can or cannot do when they showed up when I was 11 with an explanation that magic was real, and I could use it.”</p><p>	Severus raised an eyebrow. “So you thought that if one set of rules no longer applied to you, you wouldn’t follow any of them?”</p><p>	“No,” Luna whispered walking into the room. “She figured if the rules could change for some people with magic, then they could change for her if she asked nicely enough. That’s why sometimes the liversnorts follow her around, because they can sense that she’s about to do something that shouldn’t be allowed and then does it anyway.”</p><p>	“Did I call you?”</p><p>	“No. You didn’t send a message, Hermione. You sent your patronus off with nothing more than a vague idea of what it was you wanted, and it came to me. It rubbed against me until I could feel your magic over mine, until I knew exactly what you wanted because I could feel your emotions over mine.”</p><p>	“Oops,” Hermione offered with a guilty look on her face.</p><p>	Luna shook her head. “Do not worry, I am used to the weird magic following you, choosing me as your spokesperson. I have a feeling that if I did not, you wouldn’t have found yourself in nearly as many positive situations, and would have instead seen the wrong side of the moon.”</p><p>	Then, she turned to Severus. “I suppose I am helping you sort through the things that you’re sending today as a boon to my lady friend. Would you mind if I invited company to your home while you are away?”</p><p>	“No.” He paused for a moment. “Thank you for helping us move.”</p><p>	Hermione tossed a glare to Luna as she puzzled through the invitation. “You cannot make your first date be moving me into a larger manor.”</p><p>	“Sure, I can. In this instance, I’ll floo him after you leave, I’ll bat my eyelashes and say you needed help, I’ll say that we could still see each other and all he has to do is come by and keep me company while I sort through objects of importance.”</p><p>	“Let him take you to the fancy restaurant he hasn’t stopped talking about all week.”</p><p>	“That wouldn’t be fitting for a moon, only a girl, and somehow I am both,” Luna retorted. “Plus, your magic already decided that this is where I must be.”</p><p>	“It asked you to come,” Hermione countered.</p><p>	“Yes, and I chose to answer, now shoo.”</p><p>	Rabastan glanced at Luna. “Is there a reason that you’re avoiding going on a more normal date?”</p><p>	“He needs to be prepared for me to do insane things in response to stimuli that he can’t see, because that is the role that the fates chose for my price to magic. For some the war was not enough of a cost for the fates to be satisfied.”</p><p>	“Right. You could still try to do normal things before the those stimuli arrive, so he knows who you are at both.”</p><p>	Luna perked up and grinned at him. “Of course, the perfect second date. The first must be preparation though, that is the way that tests are designed.”</p><p>	Draco raised an eyebrow. “You may want to make or borrow a pair of shoes for this one though, Luna.”</p><p>	Luna furrowed her brow and she looked down, before realizing that she had indeed forgotten shoes. “Old habits,” she whispered.</p><p>	“They were always in the ravenclaw common room,” he offered. “The rest of the houses had issue with how they treated you, so if they left them anywhere else, we’d find them and leave them where you’d get them.”</p><p>	Luna cocked her head to the side. “I would have been easy to target, yet I wasn’t. Why?”</p><p>	“You were pureblood, and you were nice. Slytherin had prejudices already ingrained in them, but you Looney Luna were special. There’s not a one of them that wouldn’t have stood in front of you when you were dragged into my house, that’s why you were never tortured, because all of us would have revolted. The pureblood girl who never said an unkind word to anyone being punished for being better than the rest of us.”</p><p>	“Was that why your father asked you whether you’d marry her if it came to that level of issue?” Rabastan asked.</p><p>	“Yes.”</p><p>	“My draconic knight, magic wouldn’t have liked us together. You were made for water and fire, and I was made for air.”</p><p>	Hermione reached over to grab Draco’s hand. “Let’s go before she starts trying to explain the differences between those magics.”</p><p>	“Sounds intriguing,” Severus teased. </p><p>	“No, it’s not.” Hermione walked backwards. “It is terrifying, and something that I’ve heard one too many times.”</p><p>	“You had to be told otherwise you wouldn’t have known to summon the flames,” Luna confirmed.</p><p>	“I called to them, let that be enough, Luna.”</p><p>	“You know I can’t,” she murmured. </p><p>	Draco pulled Hermione the rest of the way from the room. “Okay, you want to explain that.”</p><p>	“Luna believes that the elementals chose me as their spokesperson for this world.”</p><p>	Luna huffed. “You have their claim around your wrists, and they trail your magic constantly.”</p><p>	Hermione rolled her eyes and grabbed Draco’s arm. “I love you, Luna, but I’m not getting into a debate about whether or not my magic comes from the elementals for the eighth time today.”<br/>
Luna tilted her head to the side. “You may not believe, but one of them does. One of them knew from the start but I can’t tell which.”</p><p>	Rabastan reached out and tugged Severus from the room, and then guided both Draco and Hermione out of the room. “Let us know if you ever figure it out, but we’ve got to get going before we end up not getting to all of the houses in a day and cause our lady wife to pout because the plan was changed ever so slightly.”</p><p>	“Don’t tease me, husband,” Hermione snarked with a smile on her face again.</p><p>	Draco swallowed hard. “Hermione, I don’t know how to apparate four people.”</p><p>	“We can go separately,” Severus offered. “Hermione is the only one who needs side-along, and they’re expecting all of us, so seeing us pop up around the same time won’t be surprising to them.”</p><p>	Hermione shook her head as her magic settled over them in a move that was becoming as familiar to her as breathing. “I know how to apparate to Malfoy manor, the unfortunate memories of being tortured there, allow me a good focal point.” With that she teleported them straight into the receiving hall where Narcissa was waiting.</p><p>	Narcissa took a glance at Hermione and handed over an anti anxiety potion. “Welcome to my house, as family you are of course welcome here.”</p><p>	Hermione downed the potion, in a show of trust that probably shouldn’t have been so blatant in front of people who don’t know what the house represents to the both of them. “No offense, Lady Malfoy, but if I could avoid ever walking through your doors again, I would be much happier.”</p><p>	“As would I,” Narcissa said. Then, she turned to Draco and kissed his cheek. “Come, all of your things, I put into boxes, labelled already. I was unsure which things you’d want, so anything you don’t, I’ll either put out in other places or place it into the family storage.”</p><p>	Draco glanced at his mother. “I appreciate the thought, mother, but I must admit some confusion on why you were prepared with a potion for my wife the second that I entered the house.”</p><p>	“Some stains you can’t remove from the hardwood floors, and some stains won’t leave your hearts. This home has way too many, and I am not the only one who would suffer their presence today.”</p><p>	“My blood?”</p><p>	“And your magic,” Narcissa confirmed.</p><p>	Severus turned to stare at Narcissa. “I’m a bit surprised that Lucius isn’t here to try to earn some compliments of the golden girl while he can to try to save face.”</p><p>	Hermione giggled as the potion took effect, and she was no longer trying to repress all of her emotions. “Lucius isn’t allowed to bother me on the rare occasions I enter this house.”</p><p>	“Indeed, he is not.”</p><p>	“Are you allowed to be his boss now?” Rabastan teased.</p><p>	Hermione patted Rabastan on the shoulder with a super serious expression in her eyes. “The most powerful of the couple is always the boss. Just not always in public, but you’re not public anymore. You’re family, because you married Draco to help save you both from torture.”</p><p>	“The slightly high witch is correct.” Narcissa stood just a bit taller. “Draco, how about you get your things before the potion wears off your wife?”</p><p>	“I don’t understand why you handed that to her so fast, nor why she accepted without asking any questions,” Severus mentioned, as Draco took off for upstairs. </p><p>	Narcissa stared at Severus for a moment. “Be grateful that he had some suspicion for your loyalty. Be grateful that he never entered your house and made you play the dutiful wife of his supporter and the perfect host. Be grateful that you never had to hear screams of children that you knew could have been yours in a blink of the eye. I handed her that potion, because I know how she screams under torture twice over, and one of those times occurred right in this house. On the floor while my son lied to the dark lord to try to buy them time. I gave her that potion, because I know just how awful it is to be reminded of the choices you made during a war. Where you had a choice between what was right and what would keep your child alive, where you had to choose to place all your hope on one 17 year old boy or risk always living with a monster next to your every thought.”</p><p>	Severus reached out only for Narcissa to move away from his touch.</p><p>	Hermione grabbed his hand and tugged him away. “The war hurt her too, and she hates all of the people in the order who never saw her struggle, never offered her a safe place to rest her head. She was never given the chance of hope, not like any of the order was.”</p><p>	“They fought,” Severus said. </p><p>	“Fighting is not all they did though. Mrs. Weasley had a safe place to store her children that Voldemort would have struggled to find. Lily had you fighting both sides for a chance to survive. It might have been an awful choice, but she was given it.  Where was Narcissa’s? Not with her father who tortured children for not following his oath, not with her leader who threatened her son when her husband faltered, not with Dumbledore who knew her pain, and not with you. Walk away,” Hermione whispered. “Do not start to try to mend fences when she does not yet know whether she can mend her own fences in her house. She does not yet know whether she can forgive her husband his sins.”</p><p>	“No, I am not so pure as you.” Narcissa met Hermione’s eyes with a glimmer of happiness.</p><p>	“I am not pure, but they were not mine during the war, so their betrayals are not on me to bare. And that is enough for me, as I have plenty who the opposite is true, and I can’t bring myself to forgive them either.”</p><p>	Draco came down the stairs carrying at least seven boxes with a sheepish expression on his face. He glanced between his mother and Hermione for less than a moment before setting down the boxes. “What has got you spooked mother?”</p><p>	The cold trail of a ghost slid around Hermione’s neck, and she knew a spirit was behind her. And after that much time with the locket around her neck, she knew the soul connected to it. “Hello, Tom,” she said. </p><p>	“That,” Narcissa snarked. </p><p>	Severus took a step back while Hermione with the potion keeping any of her fear or anxiety from the surface, just sighed. </p><p>	“Narcissa tells me that you were instrumental in my downfall.” The ghost materialized right in front of Hermione still full of the monster and not the man, too little was left of the man’s soul to be made into a ghost, too bad that monsters had them too.</p><p>	“Narcissa speaks truthfully.” Hermione turned to stare at Draco, effectively ignoring the ghost in front of her. “Do all of these boxes go to the new house?”</p><p>	Draco’s hands shook as he nodded. He couldn’t believe that Hermione was just ignoring the dark lord.</p><p>	“Ghosts have power,” Tom pointed out.</p><p>	“Not yours, not over me nor anyone that I am willing to stand in front of. You might be able to unscrew a lightbulb in a couple centuries, maybe in a couple more, you’ll be able to flip pages in a book. But, you’ll never be granted the power to influence people.”</p><p>	“Terror motivates.”</p><p>	Narcissa snorted as she handed the boxes one by one to Hermione as she dropped them into her teleportation bag for Luna to sort. Her eyes burned with unshed tears. “There is no one in this house for you to terrify. To me you are just another stain that I can’t get rid of, to Lucius you are a sick twist of his addling mind, and to the rest of them you are nothing more than a minor inconvenience on their way towards a happy future.”</p><p>	Hermione sent the last box through and turned to Tom’s ghost. His eyes bloodshot red just as he had looked when he stared her down at the Battle of Hogwarts where people she loved laid dead on the ground. And she smiled. “I’ll find a spell to banish you, and then you’ll be gone once more.”</p><p>	“Illegal,” he sing-songed.</p><p>	“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you of the opinion that I cared about the legality of destroying whatever is left of your soul? Let me clarify, I will find a spell, and I will cast a spell. And that night I will curl up next to my husbands and sleep soundly. And if the government ever tries to arrest me for it, that will be fun.”</p><p>	Narcissa smiled at Hermione. “I told you that if you made yourself known today, that you would regret it, Voldemort.”</p><p>	The ghost faded out of the room, and Hermione released a breath. “No warning, huh?”</p><p>	“Showed up while I was busy getting rid of every piece of furniture from the parlor that he tended to stay in, and he was annoyingly real.”</p><p>	“And that’s a law you won’t break?” Draco asked. </p><p>	“There are ghosts that while I’m sure they deserve death and destruction, that I would be hurt by the action to destroy them.”</p><p>	Hermione spared a glance towards the ballroom. “I would not take that right from you,” she whispered.</p><p>	Narcissa shrugged. “Let us hope that it does not come to that.” She casted her eyes over to Severus. “I never disconnected my floo from your house, so you should be able to take it their rather than having to side-along them one at a time.”</p><p>	Rabastan raised an eyebrow. “That makes the assumption that I haven’t been to Severus’ house.”</p><p>	“You haven’t,” Hermione answered. “If you had, you would have said something when we were planning this adventure.”</p><p>	Severus buried his head in his hands. “The floo, please.”</p><p>	Slowly, they all four made their way into a house rather full of dust and with picture frames broken on the floor. Rabastan reached out to stabilize Severus as he staggered.</p><p>	“Ah,” Hermione said. She had forgotten about the information that they found in his potion’s book, about his broken family and the tragedies that occurred in this house. Her wand raised and a simple spell spoken, and the dust flew off all of the areas and landed outside in a nice heap.</p><p>	When she looked back and still saw Severus struggling, she led him to a window. She pointed at the graves. “Harry and I first realized where we were right over there. Before then, we didn’t know that this was where you lived or where the Potters chose to live.” Then, she pointed at a house with a busted window. “That’s where my wand got eaten by a snake wearing a woman’s skin.”<br/>
“Pardon?” Severus asked shaking his head to look at her with a clear expression.</p><p>	“Tom wanted to have a trap for us when we got here. And at that point it was just Harry and I, because Ron wanted to go home, wanted to know that his family was safe. The woman told us that she knew about the night they died, and Harry wanted to know. So, he followed her, and I saw the trap. But Nagini was dangerous, so I chose to save myself from the bite over saving my wand from being food.”</p><p>	Rabastan laid his head on her shoulder. “Does your friend own that house?”</p><p>	“Yes, why?”</p><p>	“Maybe one day once we’re all comfortable in the careers and future that we’ve chosen to build, we can bring this neighborhood back to life. Make something out of the world that isn’t just pain and suffering here. We could give this place a nice paintjob, lighten the mood, and sell it to a nice muggle family who wants a house. Over at the Potter’s, we could take down the magic and let children grow up there without the ever-looming threat of war.”</p><p>	Hermione titled her head and gazed at the neighborhood. “That would be nice.”</p><p>	“Hmm.” Severus tucked an arm around Hermione. “That cousin of Harry’s. The one who sent him into panics when he was younger but told Harry that he hoped he survived all the awful wars coming for him. Do you think he’d like living where his mother grew up and where he could be closer to Harry?”</p><p>	“Yes, I think he would. And, I think Harry would be happy to have a connection to living family that wasn’t rotten to its core.”</p><p>	“Wouldn’t we all?” Draco asked.</p><p>	“No,” Hermione answered. “Some of us are content with the ending that we got since it meant that the issues were over.”</p><p>	Severus stepped further into the house then, and he turned to Hermione. “I don’t know where she hid them.”</p><p>	“Hid what?”</p><p>	“The scrapbooks she made for me when I was younger. She’d show them to me once, and then told me that she hid them so father couldn’t destroy them in his drunken anger. They had moving pictures, and little glimpses of magic, and I’d like them, but I was never able to find them.”</p><p>	Hermione furrowed her brow. Magic shouldn’t have kept them hidden after death, not with what limited magic she kenw that Eileen Snape had possessed by that point in her life. A miracle that neither her nor her son had turned into obscuri and wouldn’t that have been a mess and a half. </p><p>	Then, she smiled. “That would be because your mother didn’t hide them magically.” She walked over the paintings on the wall, and she lightly tapped behind each one. She moved across the whole house tapping each one, but it wasn’t until she found one of the whole family right after Severus was born before she heard the familiar hollow echo.</p><p>	She lowered the painting gently and pulled out the fancy scrapbooks. She handed them over wordlessly.</p><p>	“How did you know where to look?”</p><p>	“I grew up muggle, so I know how to look for muggle tricks in every corner especially in a muggle neighborhood with a rather unsettling trend for how people treated magic.”</p><p>	‘I bet Petunia would run in fear if she saw me walking down the street,” Severus agreed, thumbing through the pages of his childhood with a smile on his face. “Thank you, Hermione.”</p><p>	“Not an issue. Perhaps, we don’t trust those to the teleportation, I don’t want to risk the magic on them.” Hermione stepped into the main entrance area again. “What else are we here for?”</p><p>	“I have some rare books that we’ll likely want to carry on, and some hidden potion stores.”</p><p>	“Any family heirlooms?” Draco asked.</p><p>	“None that I want to remember.”	</p><p>	“Those are likely at the Prince manor,” Hermione said.</p><p>	Rabastan turned to look at her. “Right about that, how exactly are we supposed to get there? I mean Severus might be the only living heir, but he was never granted entry until they were dead, so he has no way to apparate, and the ministry won’t like us popping by for an address when we have so many properties.”</p><p>	“Which is why I sent someone else to pick up the address, I can get us there.”</p><p>	“Who did the ministry not ask questions to?”</p><p>	“Of my friends outside of you guys, almost all of them. But Neville ran this errand for me, because he’s a sweetheart, and also really wanted me to let him graft a piece off of the tree sitting in front of the Lestrange property.”</p><p>	“I assume you said yes,” Rabastan teased.</p><p>	“Why of course, as lady of your land, I figured that it wouldn’t bother you at all to have me make executive decisions. Plus the husband that you loved before the marriage really needed his vocal support.”</p><p>	Severus turned to look at her. “Tell me you didn’t barter a tree with him for my freedom. Tell me you didn’t use him like that.”</p><p>	Hermione glared at him. “I am not that cruel, Severus Snape. I told him that you were on trial and since it was well known that it happened because Professor Lupin documented everything to try to bring up concerns before Dumbledore explained some key points to him. He chose to come speak on your behalf.”</p><p>	Draco caught her hand before she could take another step towards anyone. “You would have asked him for a favor if that’s what it would take, if that was the price of seeing us freed.”</p><p>	Hermione closed her eyes to keep her anger down. “Would I ask that of people? Yes. Would I ask that of Neville? No. There is no world where I would have asked someone who had a deep fear of one of my husbands to show up to defend them. That is a line that I was not willing to cross, nor would I ever be willing to cross.”</p><p>	“Why not Neville?” Rabastan’s voice was the calmest out of all of them.</p><p>	“Because we were 11, and I had to curse him to move through him to stop that dark lord from stealing a rock to make himself immortal. Because I had already chosen to hurt Neville to save others once, and I would not choose my husbands over him. That would have scarred us both too deeply.”</p><p>	Severus turned to look at her. “It takes courage to stand up to your friends.”</p><p>	“And it took courage to walk away, leaving him frozen on the ground. And I would make that choice again and again knowing that it saved him from a worse fate that night, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a betrayal, nor does it mean that the choice didn’t weigh on me.”</p><p>	“I always wondered why he let the three of you try to stop that alone. He could have at least had adults along the way to guide you.”</p><p>	“Then we wouldn’t have been his perfect little soldiers determined to save the world, we would have been children deserving of protection. And Harry had to be willing to die, I had to be willing to kill, and Ron had to be willing to take a stand. None of us would have been able to as children, but we could as soldiers. So, before you try to make assumptions about what I would or wouldn’t do, make sure to think back to whether there are choices I’ve already had to make once, that I may not handle doing twice.”</p><p>	Draco gripped her hand a bit tighter. “I owe quite a bit to mother for keeping me from it for as long as she could. She didn’t have to stand in front of him and ask for the children to be spared for another few years, because we didn’t have to go that low.”</p><p>	“It is one of the few things that I will say that Tom had the high ground on Dumbledore on. He waited much closer to when you were an adult than we were ever even considered being given.”</p><p>	Draco quirked an eyebrow at her. “I wasn’t aware you were in the habit of giving homicidal dark lords a pass.”</p><p>	“I’m not. He’s an evil person who deserved the violent death that got him in the end, but he was not the one that dragged children into this war. He’s not the one who did that, and the history books should know better than to write half truths and allow evil to fall only on one side rather than on both sides when both were wrong.”</p><p>	Severus rubbed his face. “Can we not? Can we just put a blanket rule on not talking about Voldemort? Please.”</p><p>	Hermione softened her expression almost immediately as she reached out for Severus. “Of course, I apologize. I didn’t mean to cause you any distress.”</p><p>	Severus just walked past her and opened the door to the library. “Do not fret, wife. I know that you have no intentions of causing me to suffer just for the glory of watching me suffer. This is just something I wished to ask for, and you are willing to allow me this boon, so I thank you.”</p><p>	Hermione caught sight of the books and was mostly positive that he was trying to distract her. “Would you mind terribly if I just brought all of the books and handled the extra copies later?” she asked. </p><p>	Severus laughed. “Some of these books are dark.”</p><p>	“Magic can’t be dark, only used for darkness.”</p><p>	Rabastan shook his head. “Seriously, how were you not in Slytherin? That’s practically out of the handbook that they lorded over the rest of us.”</p><p>	“Muggleborn.”</p><p>	“That shouldn’t matter. That never should have mattered,” Draco muttered. </p><p>	Hermione winked at him. She knew all too well what would have happened if the hat hadn’t thought to keep her away from that house, because all of them would have suffered greatly either to hurt her when they didn’t want to or to be hurt to keep her safe from their own harm. She started sending the books one by one through the bag in the order of the shelfs that they were in. A journal had also floated out of the bag and was recording each title. Then she could check them with her own records later.</p><p>	Rabastan turned his attention to her. “Hermione, how precisely are you multitasking two rather complex spells?”</p><p>	“One charm,” she replied. “Two main purposes but only one spell, otherwise there would be no way that my mind could concentrate on them both.”</p><p>	“When did you come up with it,” he asked softly. He exchanged a brief glance with Severus that confirmed that this charm would be more than enough to get her a second mastery should she choose to pursue it.</p><p>	“This morning, right before we left. I thought it might be handy to have a complete list of the books being dragged in from the many properties. And Luna might be willing to help us sort, but no one should have to manually go through over a couple thousand books.”</p><p>	Draco dropped his head against the nearest wall. “Father used to ask how was it that a muggleborn could constantly be beating me in every class that the school offered, especially one taught by my own godfather, I would like to think that this conversation proves the answer to that.”</p><p>	Hermione flicked her gaze up to his. “You beat me in divination.”</p><p>	“Bunch of rubbish, however I grew up with all of the myths so it was rather easy to bullshit it.”</p><p>	“We literally all had our lives affected by a prophecy and yet the course explaining that is rubbish to the two of you,” Rabastan teased.</p><p>	Severus glanced at Rabastan. “You either are a prophet or you are not. Trying to teach ways to see little glimpses is pointless.” He tapped his wand against the kitchen cabinets and started pulling down the different vials, but then his body froze.</p><p>	Draco walked over to him. He remained just a step behind Severus just in case something had triggered a particularly bad memory from the war. He’d rather not get cursed ever. “Severus?”</p><p>	Hermione glanced over when Severus didn’t make a move to speak. She waved her wand and the spell died down dropping what was left with the books down on the ground. She walked over and saw the feather sitting in the cabinet along with a stationary charm that did not feel like Severus’ magic. </p><p>	“Your mother’s magic?”</p><p>	Severus shook his head.</p><p>	“Hmm, looks like a creature came here to make sure what was left of your history remained intact then,” Hermione said.</p><p>	“Hermione,” he whispered. “That means that a featherfaun knew where I was, they knew the whole time. Every single time that my father raised a hand to me.”</p><p>	“Yes, well the wizarding world doesn’t really do shit against abuse. That’s one of the things that I’ll be fighting to fix. And featherfauns couldn’t have done anything other than killing your father, and I know you well enough to know that was never something you would have asked for.”</p><p>	“I needed what I didn’t want anyway.”</p><p>	Hermione cupped his face with her free hand, and she read his expression. She couldn’t decide whether he wanted her to counter that he was a better person or whether he wanted someone to say that what he wanted in the back of his head was not enough to make him a bad person. Finally, she dropped her hand and turned away. “You didn’t need him dead, Severus.”</p><p>	“Didn’t I?”</p><p>	“You needed a mother willing to stand up for you and run to the family when they were alive to get you to safety even if it doomed her. You needed an adult that you could trust with your pain, and you needed someone to love you beyond the rest of the world. I can’t make your mother choose to protect you over whatever love she thought she had. I can’t make the adults from your childhood be better. All I can do is swear that you won’t walk alone through your darkness or the world’s ever again.”</p><p>	Draco dropped his jaw. </p><p>	Rabastan froze from where he was grabbing the last of the books and manually writing them down before slipping them into the bag.</p><p>	Severus turned from the cabinet to look at Hermione. “I don’t want this to rehabilitated.”</p><p>	Hermione swallowed hard. Her eyes closed, then she nodded. She flicked her wand, and the books flew into the bag with the old charm, then she summoned her bag. Then, she stepped in front of Severus and carefully slipped the different labeled vials into her other bag that wouldn’t jostle them as much. She gently lifted the feather and tucked it into Severus’ robe pocket. </p><p>	She gestured for everyone to exit the house and followed them out.</p><p>	Rabastan reached for her hand with a sheepish expression on his face. The second-hand embarrassment from Severus not reacting to her speech was going to kill him. Hermione let him twine their fingers together and hold on for all that he was worth.</p><p>	Hermione glanced at Severus’ face before shaking her head. She raised her wand and smiled. “Bombardo,” she chanted. The protego charm was over all of them as the house imploded all around them. As the wood lay waste on the damn ground and the sound woke the dogs from next door. “Fiendfyre,” she continued. The flames rose out of the ashes, and Hermione put on a frantic expression as a muggle opened their door.</p><p>	“Oh blast,” Hermione called. “They just told us that there might be a build up in gas, but they swore it wouldn’t blow.”</p><p>	“Those people never know when things are going to explode. Do you need to come inside? We’ve got some coffee to put on. Bless that you aren’t injured.”</p><p>	Hermione fluffed out her own outfit. “I think we should probably try to get to the insurance people as soon as possible. And contact whoever needs to deal with the gas leak.”</p><p>	“My husband has already called for the fire department to come by for the flames, don’t you worry about it. I’ll record what happens to the Snape’s place. You get to the insurance people and find some place to rest your feet.”</p><p>	“Thank you,” Hermione said. Then, she used her hold on Rabastan’s hand to pull him away from the house. The others followed her lead with shock written on their faces. She led them to an ally, before she let out the laughter building up.</p><p>	Draco cupped her face. “Hey, wherever you just went, try really hard to stay sane for me. Because the aurors are going to want to burn us on a stake for this.”</p><p>	“They won’t ever know. The neighbors didn’t hear any magical spells, they saw no magic, and even fiendfyre will go out without oxygen which is what gas fires require, which is why I said that’s what it was.”</p><p>	Severus paused. “I said…” he trailed off.</p><p>	“You said that you didn’t want that house to be able to be rebuilt, you didn’t want happy memories to exist in that house. Now, that will never be an issue.”</p><p>	“You burned down his house,” Rabastan moaned. </p><p>	“Don’t act like you haven’t asked for the exact same thing.”</p><p>	“I won’t walk alone,” Severus muttered.</p><p>	Hermione choked back her laughter and forced herself to recall that none of her husbands had ever actually been witness to the way that she on occasion started a crazy endeavor to make them happier. “Draco, I’m sane, and we’re safe. I promise. Rabastan, calm down. This wasn’t some revenge fantasy. There’s nothing to fear here. Severus, you won’t walk alone, so if you tell me you need me to take care of something and you don’t give any more information, I’ll take care of it.”</p><p>	Severus leaned over and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you, my dear.”</p><p>	Rabastan nodded slowly. “You’re a scary lady, and I am so glad that I have the privilege of being protected by you instead of being your enemy.”</p><p>	Hermione quirked her lips up into a smile. “You’re welcome. Now will both of you please grab my hands.”</p><p>	Both Severus and Rabastan reached over to rest their hands on her shoulders. They had grown used to the simple way her magic covered them before her teleportation of them to wherever she’s decided that she should be.</p><p>	Hermione smiled as the sight of Prince manor become clear to her eyes once more. The pristine house wasn’t somewhere that she’d want to live for all of her life, but she would be happy knowing that this house was still standing. This would be a good place to be able to point to when people asked her why she never worries about them.</p><p>	Her feet touched the ground, and she could feel the wards bend around her. The family magic surged to join hers, and she turned to Severus. “Welcome, Severus, to the home of your ancestors and your magic.”</p><p>	“Mistress Prince, you didn’t say you were coming today,” a house elf called as she popped up right next to Hermione. “Will you require any food? Drink? Rest?”</p><p>	Hermione bit down the urge to start laughing at the expressions. “No, Loppy, I think we will be good today. We’re planning on taking some of the things that we want on a new property with us.”</p><p>	“You’ll need elves,” Loppy retorted.</p><p>	“You will of course be welcome in any property that holds the title of Prince in it.”</p><p>	The elf gave Hermione a short bow before disappearing once more.</p><p>	“I might have come here after Neville got the address,” Hermione admitted, still containing her amusement.</p><p>	Draco glared at her from under his eyes. “That’s why you didn’t put up any objection to having house elves, you’ve talked with ones from the decent wizarding elite.”</p><p>	“Possibly.”</p><p>Rabastan stared at the house for a long moment. “Hermione?”</p><p>	“Hmm.”</p><p>	“Why does this whole place currently feel like your magic?”</p><p>	“I’ve been here rather frequently since marrying you. The land adapts to the Lady and Lord of the house, and I am this house’s lady. I could probably adapt some of the lower parts of the Malfoy property if I chose to stay there. Or any of the Black or Lestrange, but I haven’t gone to those. I wasn’t brave enough to venture to where Bellatrix lived alone, and well Narcissa warned me that the Black land often does not take well to new members of the family if not escorted by current ones.”</p><p>	Severus glanced towards Hermione. He noticed that the tension that had been present was mostly gone now as she stepped onto his family land. “Yet my land offered you no such problems,” he stated. </p><p>	“Why would your land give me any such problems? Prince has never been one of the elites despite being a pureblood house. Not to mention that unlike the Black properties, there is no one but you and me for this land.” </p><p>	Rabastan offered her an arm. “Well, then Lady Prince, please show us to the areas that we are searching for.”</p><p>	Hermione accepted his touch and led him as Pansy had told her to keep her back up straight. She knew how to play the game at being a pure blood lady. Her blood wasn’t one of them, but her magic called her that anyway. She weaves through the hallways with familiarity. </p><p>	“I don’t suppose that they have much for potions,” Severus asked as he trails behind them. </p><p>	Hermione shook her head. None that would have stayed this long, anyway.</p><p>	Loppy popped into the hallway. “Are you in need of potions, sir? I could send one of the younger elves to pick some up. It wouldn’t be a hardship at all.”</p><p>	Severus widened his eyes. “No, just curious about ingredients potentially in the manor.”</p><p>	Loppy shook her head. “I’m afraid not. We never had a gardening elf. If you would like me to train one of the younger ones to do so, and start a garden focused on the potion ingredients, I could start that immediately.”</p><p>	“Would the younger elf be able to carry them to a different location?” </p><p>	“Why, of course, my lady. Anywhere that you would like them. I could get the garden started as early as late spring.”</p><p>	Hermione grinned at Severus. “Please do so.”</p><p>	Loppy clapped loudly as she left the hallway.</p><p>	Draco raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware that you could give orders to the elves without panicking about their rights.”</p><p>	“I offered to free any of them who wanted to be freed, and I told the others to explain their jobs. Many of them have none because there hasn’t been a master or mistress in years. I’ve been coming up with some new jobs, but since I know Severus prefers fresh ingredients, this is perfect.”</p><p>	Severus chuckled as she pushed open the door to a library with books thrown across the nice table in the middle. Books, he was sure that the elves would have picked up if they were left by his relatives, which means those were Hermione’s from while she was working on fixing Azkaban and waiting for their many trials. Proof that she felt comfortable in his home, even if he had never been there.</p><p>	Hermione leaned into the arm that she was holding until her head could fall on Rabastan’s shoulder. “Simple things, my spell should take care of everything in here.”</p><p>	Rabastan nodded. Still he didn’t move away from her half embrace that allowed him the comfort of her against him. “I’m surprised you didn’t suggest that we move here. The manor is nice, and it is clear that you like the manor.”</p><p>	“Not as much as I’ll love the house that we build together. Plus, its not like this place is designed for us.”</p><p>	Draco raised an eyebrow. “We could easily find a nice balance here.”</p><p>	Hermione shook her head without moving it from its comfortable position. She wasn’t going to let them talk her into moving into the house that she likes when she knows that some of the features of the house weren’t designed for all of them. Instead, she flicked her wand to start the spell while leaning more of her weight against Rabastan. She trusted that he’d keep her upright as her magic soared through the room, where she could let her mind wander.</p><p>	Severus glanced around the house. “She’s right, we should all have an input in the house that we’re going to spend our lives in. And, even if she likes this house, living in the one that we build isn’t going to mean that she can never come back to this house or anything. If she wants to curl up on the front lawn, she can apparate every morning.”</p><p>	Hermione laughed at that because seriously every morning would probably be completely ridiculous. “I’m pretty sure I can convince you to get the correct grass for me to do it in our yard as well.”</p><p>	“What if the magic at the Lestrange house won’t bond?” Draco asked. “Because I know you well enough to know that’s what you’d want. I know that’s how you’d want to somehow recharge your magic by stepping on a land that accepts you, by wards that read you as one of the acting members of the family. I can tell from the way that your body eased the second that we arrived, that’s something that you want. What if you can’t force your magic to merge with whatever magic still lingers from the Lestrange household? Because Bellatrix was a member and so was Rodolphus, and they had a lot more impact.”</p><p>	Hermione pinched her eyes so that her glare would convey just how much she thought he was being idiotic. “Do you need a list of my titles, husband? Would that maybe force your brain to accept the truth?”</p><p>	Rabastan coughed. He placed a hand over Hermione’s mouth, and she went silent although her glare turned to him. He considered it a win that she didn’t try to push out of the embrace that she was in. “Draco, she’s the Lady Lestrange. The magic of the house will bend to her will once she exerts it. That won’t be a today problem, it won’t even be a tomorrow problem, but by the time that all of us have magic building that house, her magic will flex the wards to accept her as one of the main magic users.”</p><p>	“That’s not always enough,” Draco pointed out.</p><p>	“That’s not always enough for arranged marriages,” Severus corrected. “When a marriage has been blessed by magic, there’s always been a blended nature to the marriage that is reflected in the magic of the house. We don’t have to worry because for whatever reason magic chose to bless us.”</p><p>	Hermione jerked her head to one of the books on the table. “There’s been some studies on the blessing of marriages by magic. They used to be popular and welcomed. They ended around Grindelwald’s reign. I tried to figure out why he was against it, but I didn’t get very far. But I did find an interesting study, most of the marriages that are blessed by magic are ones where the members of the marriage had already thrown their magic behind the other person when they needed it most.”</p><p>	“Too bad that doesn’t help us,” Rabastan said.</p><p>	“Says who. Last I checked we had quite a bit of that with our pasts. Because Draco was there the day that I was being tortured and keeping my eyes on his gave me just enough spite to keep my sanity. That might not have been the goal, but right then he was my saving grace. He was what kept me from losing my mind. Severus was willing to kill a man that he had come to respect and care for, and why? Because otherwise Draco was the one who would end up on the floor screaming for the pain to stop. Severus allowed you your mind, when all logic said to make sure that there was never a reason to suspect him. You made sure that no one could claim that he wasn’t a good man. Severus begged for your life above his in front of magic when I was debating marrying you. I shoved a potion down Severus’ throat in the middle of a battle holding out a vain fraction of a hope that it would be enough to save him. Have we not thrown our essence at each other to save them even when we didn’t know why?”</p><p>	Severus furrowed his brow. “But that wasn’t down out of love.”</p><p>	“I don’t recall saying that it needed to be. You can save people for reasons other than love, but that doesn’t make you any less bound by magic to each other from that life debt.”</p><p>	“That would make it possible for even people like Voldemort to be blessed by magic,” Draco muttered as he side-stepped some of the flying books to come closer to Hermione.</p><p>	Hermione nodded. “Extremely possible. I don’t know whether I would ever claim that magic did not bless Tom. After all, it allowed him to split his soul, when it could have denied him. Some of us ask for different blessings than others.”</p><p>	“Do you regret it?” Rabastan asked. His eyes turned downcast, but he couldn’t take his words back, nor would he want to. “Do you regret the fact that you asked magic to bless us? That the first time that you truly called to magic and didn’t exert your will on it was for the three of us, whom you barely knew.”</p><p>	Hermione titled her head where she could meet his eyes more easily. “No. I do not regret the choice I made that night, nor will I. I made the best choice possible in that horrendous situation, and in return all of you get to live, and I get to have a marriage blessed by magic.”</p><p>	“Even if you think that something will go wrong someday.” Severus reached over and grabbed her free hand to twine their fingers together. If she was going to tell them that perhaps they had already made their choice before they knew what they would be doing, he was going to treasure her for it.</p><p>	“It won’t all go wrong someday,” Hermione whispered. “We’ll just have new sets of choices and the nightmares will warp to new fears. That’s the price of living. We will always be at odds with something. I’ve made my peace with being important to the fates.”</p><p>	“Nope,” Rabastan said with a pop as the last book flew into the bag. “We’re all going to have our happy little retirement. I shall make sure that it is so.”</p><p>	“What will you do get in a fist fight with the fates?” Hermione teased.</p><p>	“Don’t give him any ideas, after you he’s the closest thing to a Gryffindor that we’ve got, and I’d rather not have to constantly be bailing the two of you out of trouble,” Severus groaned. </p><p>	Draco shook his head. “Come on, you know their first call would be to me not you, because I’m less likely to scream at them before we get home.”</p><p>	“Bold of you to assume my first call wouldn’t be to Luna and Theo to come get me so I could avoid you ever knowing.”</p><p>	“Would they come bail us out of trouble?” Rabastan asked.</p><p>	“Almost definitely. Or I should say Luna would come without question on most occasions and where Luna goes, Theo follows. And Theo’s the one with the money to bail us out immediately.”</p><p>	“Ah, smart reason to say the both of them then.”</p><p>	Severus laughed. “Alright, so with the Black manor, not Sirius’ place, we all know that even with him being blown off the family tree, that house was his to gift to Potter when he wished too. But the one that Narcissa’s parents lived in, are we going there next?”</p><p>	Hermione swallowed hard. “We could.”</p><p>	“Did you already grab all the books or something?” Draco questioned.</p><p>	“Narcissa gave me the warning not to enter that house for a reason. But, Theo offered to go make sure there was nothing there that would be helpful during our settling in period. Things in that house are willing to curse me for even stepping into the house with you next to me.”</p><p>	“That much dark magic would call the aurors down upon it.”</p><p>	“The aurors can’t touch it. The wards on that house are too strong. I doubt that anyone outside the family will ever be able to touch the magic for a couple centuries after the entire house dies out, and even those that marry in could be hurt with where the magic is right now. Maybe if you started working on the wards, they’d be habitable at some point.”</p><p>	Draco inclined his head. “Maybe, we deal with that on a later day then. Let’s go figure out the huge hassle of a house then. What all are we burning to add some nice colors to the flames and which things are we dragging back with us anyway?”</p><p>	Rabastan froze. He hadn’t started to think about what all they should preserve and what they should burn. He just wanted to make sure that the traces of evil and his torture were burned to a crisp. He hadn’t actually started considering what that meant for a long-term plan. His breathes started coming at an increased rate as he realized just how little of a plan that he really had.</p><p>	Hermione tightened her grip on his arm. She caught that he was spiraling trapped in his own head, and she held on to his arm to try to ground him in the present. “It’s alright to not know the answer to that,” she murmured in his ear as Severus blocked their bodies from Draco’s view. His protection comforted her slightly. “It doesn’t matter if it takes several days to get through the house to make sure none of the memories that you’d like to keep get burned, that’s going to be just fine.”</p><p>	“Will it?”</p><p>	“Of course, my dear. There’s nothing that must get done right away. There’s plenty that we’d like to do at some point, but if that’s not what today needs, that’s just how it is.”</p><p>	“But I would have thought you’d want to have this project finished as soon as you possibly could because this has got to rank like last on your list of accomplishments that you want to finish.”<br/>
Hermione chuckled and placed a small, light kiss to his cheek right over his beard. “Who told you that I wanted to start my life right away? I could use a break after fighting a war for ungrateful miscreants, and a government too dumb to realize that its prejudiced. This matters to me more than any potential gains for a future that I will hope to live one day.”</p><p>	“Why?”</p><p>	“Because the future doesn’t mean much if I have no place and no one to come home too. The future doesn’t look bright without a home,” she replied. </p><p>	Rabastan leaned his head to settle on top of hers as he fought back the tears threatening to spill out of his eyes. “Let’s do this. But be warned, I don’t know whether I can get through this without losing it.”</p><p>	Hermione gestured for Severus to get himself and Draco closer to her. Then, she grinned at Rabastan. “Whatever emotions you need to let out after everything that has happened to you, feel free to let loose. I’ll take care of the backlash.”</p><p>	“Please don’t go on a murdering spree,” Draco clarified, accepting the open hand that Rabastan reached out to him. </p><p>	“Not even of fellow death eaters.”</p><p>	“Preferably even them.”</p><p>	“But if you do, give us at least an hour head start to hide the bodies, get a new suspect, or to flee,’ Severus added.</p><p>	Hermione laughed, before allowing her magic to carry them to the last and arguably the most dangerous of the houses that they were walking into today. She knew that the memories in these walls may very well haunt them all until the day that they died. Some of the horrors that these walls had seen were too harsh to even put into words. Family had lived here, but they had tortured each other as if all of this was some sick type of fight. </p><p>	Rabastan couldn’t bring himself to look up at the house right at first. He kept his eyes downcast towards the ground as if that would postpone his endurance towards seeing the place of all of his cruel memories.</p><p>	Draco stepped forward dropping the hand he was holding, as he peered up at the grounds where they would be living. The view was rather nice, and no one was likely to sneak up on them with the wards in place. He was sure that they’d make some exceptions. Hermione’s friends would be welcome at any time and thus the wards could be set to allow them in. Perhaps at some point, Severus would want the same for some of the staff at Hogwarts that he grew close to. </p><p>	Hermione glanced around the clearing for a moment. “This wouldn’t be a terrible place for a sanctuary. We could easily plant some natural forest trees towards the edge of the property. Hollow out some of the ground for a magical running river. Only issue would be actual shelter, but I suppose we could manage some artificial ones if that became a large issue as you bring animals in,” she said.</p><p>	Severus turned to see where she was looking. “The hills could easily be charmed to have some hidden caves if needed.”</p><p>	“Yes, yes. We’d want to be careful though, because sometimes magical caves can have other issues.”</p><p>	Rabastan finally looked up from the ground to follow their eyes towards the environment. He relaxed some of the tension in his bones as he gestured towards the general boundaries of the property line. “Not to mention that with some decent charm work, we could make this area into a huge sanctuary. If Scamander can fit his into a suitcase, I can fit mine into a huge property.”<br/>
“Didn’t Scamander break like several laws by taking in animals that weren’t legal?” Draco asked.</p><p>	Hermione grinned. “I say that we try to beat his record of how many magical beasts to hold in a sanctuary such as this. And that we definitely keep that secret from any government officials who show up.”</p><p>	Severus turned and wrapped his arm around Rabastan just above Hermione’s arm. He placed a soft kiss to Rabastan’s head. “I think that sounds absolutely brilliant. Plus, even more fresh potions ingredients.”</p><p>	“I will hex you if you hurt one of my animals for a potion,” Rabastan replied. </p><p>	“I will hold you down for him.” Draco remembered his actions hurting magical creatures before just so his father could show off political clout. He hated that his actions had brought about the death of such a grand creature for nothing more than him to get a brief glimpse at pride in his father’s eyes.</p><p>	“You didn’t kill Buckbeak,” Hermione said. She glanced over at him. “I might have used a time turner to break him and Sirius out of custody.”</p><p>	“That’s beyond illegal. Also, we were literally like 13, how did you have a time turner?”</p><p>	Hermione laughed. “Three guesses, and if you don’t get it, I will smack you.”</p><p>	“Dumbledore,” Severus snarled.</p><p>	“Correct. He thought that if I knew more of the material, I would both keep Harry’s grades up and keep him out of trouble later. He was right, and he was wrong.”</p><p>	Rabastan raised an eyebrow. </p><p>	“I might have kept Harry alive, but I let him get into all kinds of trouble while doing so. I only intervened on occasion.”</p><p>	Draco furrowed his brow. “There is no way that Potter managed most of his classes without your direct input.”</p><p>	“Manage them, no. Understand them, yes. He’s always been bright, he just can’t handle due dates for the life of himself, and the few classes that we shared with you, tended to be taught by people trying to harm him in one fashion or another.”</p><p>	“Minus care of magical creatures,” Draco agreed.</p><p>	“Hagrid never tried to harm us, that doesn’t necessarily mean that his actions never brought us into direct harm. Especially when Dumbledore thought he was so smart when using Hagrid to pass along secrets that he didn’t want to share with his authority on the manner because they could easily get him arrested.”</p><p>	“Like sending 11 year olds into a dungeon.”</p><p>	Hermione laughed. Hearing someone just blatantly state the absolute horrendousness that should have been avoided her first year, always made her laugh. They had made choices based on manipulation by someone with far more skill in the field that he ever wanted credit for. </p><p>	Rabastan turned his body towards the house and took in a deep breath. “I don’t remember the last time I walked through these doors with my mind still intact.”</p><p>	Severus tugged him closer to himself and tucked Rabastan’s head into the crook of his neck. “But this time you have me right next to you, promising that I will not let anything bad happen to you.”</p><p>	“And he has backup,” Hermione said.</p><p>	Rabastan took the first step, and then the second until they finally entered the house. His breathes came in uneven patterns as Hermione gazed over some of the more expensive pieces in the greeting room. She quickly slipped those into the actual bag she held. “We can put the decorative pretty things into the bank vault.”</p><p>	Rabastan nodded. Then, he let out a deep breath. “Severus,” he pleaded.</p><p>	“Don’t worry. I won’t stray from your side, not while we are here, and not once we get home if you do not ask me to.”</p><p>	Draco leaned into the first room down the hall. “Anything we want from the kitchen?”</p><p>	Hermione shook her head. “There’s nothing in there that is extremely valuable and we can drag the stuff I bought for the Potter Manor into the new place.”</p><p>	Draco nodded. </p><p>	Slowly, all of them made their way into the various rooms of the house, pausing each and every time that something seemed important to Rabastan. Severus never left his side even as the rooms of the house had more visceral reactions from him. He flinched away from most portraits, and Hermione made sure that she muted each painting as they moved by so they couldn’t speak whatever words that Rabastan was so terrified would be said.</p><p>	Severus gestured with his head as Hermione and Draco finished up placing most of the things in the attic. He wanted to get Rabastan out of this house and everything that needed his attention had already been done. </p><p>	Hermione nodded to him.</p><p>	Severus teleported them back to the Potter manor. “Dear, we’re home,” he whispered.</p><p>	Rabastan leaned into him and crashed them both into a couch. “Tomorrow that place is gone, and I never have to walk into it again.”</p><p>	“Yes, we’re going to tear it down for you by tomorrow.” His arms came around Rabastan. </p><p>	Rabastan turned his body so he was facing Severus and could see his expressions. He leaned down and pressed their lips together. “You stayed with me.”</p><p>	“Always.”</p><p>	Draco popped into the house and raised an eyebrow at them. “You do know Luna is still in the other room, right?”</p><p>	Luna slid into the room, silent on her feet. “No need to worry, toy dragon. They were never going to do anything.”</p><p>	“Why is my nickname always changing?”</p><p>	“You have the most fluctuation.”</p><p>	Hermione appeared in the room with a toss of her bags onto a table. “Luna, stop teasing my husbands with metaphors that they aren’t going to understand yet. Thank you for your help.”</p><p>	“Our help,” Theo interjected slipping out of the room. He glanced over at the two on the couch and grinned. “Glad to know that you aren’t going to be without romance for the rest of eternity.”</p><p>	“Thank you, Theo. Glad to see that you stayed.”</p><p>	“Well, its rude to leave a date before both members are done, and apparently Luna believes that helping friends pack for a move is a reasonable date.”</p><p>	Hermione shrugged. “I tried to tell her that it wasn’t, but mortal minds.”</p><p>	“Have no impact on gods,” Luna agreed.</p><p>	Rabastan dropped his chin to Severus’s neck and laughed. “You are no god, girl. I’ve seen humans who think they are before, and you aren’t anywhere close to that level of delusional.”</p><p>	“Gods are not cruel, they are not evil nor are they good. And I am no god, but I hear them more than anyone else.”</p><p>	“Bye Luna,” Hermione called.</p><p>	Theo ushered her out of the house with a wave to them all.</p><p>	Severus unleashed his chuckles as he jerked his hips up enough to knock Rabastan further into the embrace where he could extend an arm to invite the others into the embrace. </p><p>	Hermione fell into the simple embrace first. She curled into the comfort of the others. Her hand ended up curled in Rabastan’s hair, combing through it.</p><p>	Draco rolled his eyes. He pulled his wand and waited a moment to see whether any of them were going to tense when they realized that he had a weapon pulled on them. But the tension never came. He should have known Hermione wouldn’t, but the other two had every reason to constantly be on the lookout for anyone who might pull a weapon on them, and the simple way that they almost never move towards that was almost amusing. </p><p>	The first spell he casted, changed all of their clothes into comfortable sleepwear. He could easily do that with transfiguration, and it would make them all more ready to just slowly drift off into sleep. Then, he levitated all of them, so he could carry them to the bedroom. </p><p>	“It’s not nearly late enough to justify sleeping, Draco,” Severus pointed out.</p><p>	“The sun has set, and we had an eventful day. You can stay away as long as you wish, but this will be more comfortable than cuddling on the couch without speaking.”</p><p>	Hermione smirked. “He wants us in his bed, Severus.”</p><p>	Draco sighed.</p><p>	Rabastan grinned. He craned his head in her hands until he could catch her arm with his mouth to trail kisses to her arm. “Think so?”</p><p>	Severus huffed a laugh out. “I thought there had to be an ulterior motive here.”</p><p>	“I will actually stab all of you,” Draco muttered. Still, he was careful not to bang them against nay walls or drop them as he moved all of them into the bed. As, he set them down, he crawled up into the bed where he could tuck a hand between Severus’ and Rabastan’s bodies while curling up next to all of them. His hand grasped onto Rabastan’s waist.</p><p>	“You wouldn’t dare,” Hermione countered. But the smile on her face refused to waiver in the slightest.</p><p>	Despite their teasing, none of them attempted to do more than simple comfort touches with kisses and light brushes of hands. They knew that the day was difficult for everyone. Draco had left his family home for good as an adult that has gone through hell. Severus had entered the family home he had never been welcome in and the one that had made his childhood a living hell. Rabastan had to face the demons that appeared in the house that should have been a sanctuary that became a prison cell. And Hermione had been the one that made sure that everything was handled perfectly. </p><p>	The next morning as Hermione rose, she realized that she was alone in the bed. For a second, she wondered whether she had gone to the larger bed on habit rather than actually seeing whether any of her husbands wanted company in the morning, before Rabastan stepped out of the bathroom. </p><p>	“Oh good, we were slightly worried we would have to wake you.”</p><p>	“Where are the others?” She stood up and made her way over to the dresser to grab some clothes for the day. No fancy robes or anything that she wouldn’t mind having the smell of smoke on them for the rest of eternity, because burning down one of the major land masses was bound to leave a mark on their clothes that even magic would have a difficult time bringing out.</p><p>	“Draco said he was running to the normal breakfast place, and Severus wanted to do some light brewing to calm down before we all ended up spending most of the day having a fun adventurous day full of destroying the things that haunt us.”</p><p>	“I don’t know whether we’ll destroy the things that haunt us, but we’ll make them think twice before showing up to mess with us, that’s for sure.” Hermione leaned up and kissed him as she pressed pass him into the bathroom.</p><p>	Rabastan grinned at her. “So that wasn’t just when we’re all emotional and on the verge of a breakdown?”</p><p>	“I never do such things, good sir. I am a proper lady.”</p><p>	He snorted as she left the bathroom.</p><p>	While Hermione was busy getting ready for the day, Severus entered the bedroom and stared at the empty bed for a long moment. “I think I much prefer the days when she can laze around in the bed rather than getting up and being functional.”</p><p>	“On my days off,” she called over the running water. “Feel free to keep me in the bed constantly.”</p><p>	“Oh, really?” Draco quipped as he entered the room. “Something tells me that we would only manage that one for short bursts of time, because you’d want to be working on something even on your day off.”</p><p>	Rabastan stepped over and pressed a quick kiss to Draco’s lips. “Sounds like we just have to motivate her into wanting to stay in the bed. And I’m all for that.”</p><p>	Hermione left the bathroom with a towel hanging around her body as she reached into the bag Draco held for a roll, before heading right back in to change. “Thank you, dearest.”</p><p>	“You’re literally the easiest person to acquire food for. You don’t want sugar, you don’t want fancy most days, and you really like when whatever it is doesn’t require you to expend energy on getting it ready.”</p><p>	Severus paused. “Hmm, perhaps I should cook something sometime soon, we haven’t actually had a family meal.”</p><p>	Hermione had pulled on all of her clothes and eaten half of the roll, by the time that she was completely finished in the bathroom. “If you can wait like a week, you can cook the first meal in our new house.”</p><p>	“That sounds like it would be a lovely date.”</p><p>	“Our first date,” Draco pointed out.</p><p>	Rabastan shook his head. “I feel like one can call a wedding a date. This is our second date.”</p><p>	Hermione laughed. Her smile cracked against her skin. Despite the terror that she felt on trying to manage the marriage that had been foisted upon them, she can say that they undoubtedly were helping her get back on her feet after all of this time. Because all of them had been torn down by the war, so now all they were doing was accomplishing the simple goal of being okay again at some point in their future. “Come now, let’s not waste the daylight, because I am not going to be working on the house when the sun isn’t up. That’s my limit.”</p><p>	“What if we were to shoot up thousands of luminous balls into the air to replicate a starry night with much more light?”</p><p>	“If you wanted to take my on a picnic date with that, that would be amazing. Anything that would involve actual work, I will actually judge you for in some fashion.”</p><p>	“Not a nocturnal person,” Severus said with a lift in his voice betraying his amusement at the situation.</p><p>	Hermione scoffed. “I’ve survived on the run from a dark lord, I can be nocturnal when needsd must. But this is not a needs must situation. We have a nice house, even if it isn’t ours, that holds no evil memories. We have a secondary property we can go to on top of that that has no memories for anyone but me, which I liked. So, why would we work through the night?”</p><p>	Severus rolled his eyes. He leaned over and kissed her cheek. “My dear, that was a joke. It may be a shock to hear, but I am capable of them.”</p><p>	Hermione inclined her head. “Apologies, husband. I must have missed all of those brilliant jokes in the seven years I have known you.”</p><p>	“Ah, but you knew him as a professor, not as the man,” Draco countered. “I can assure you that while rare he would crack a joke in my father’s parlor that would cause my mother to stammer.”</p><p>	“The glory of knowing Lucius from a young age, I had all of his secrets to share with his wife when he was teasing her mercilessly.”</p><p>	Rabastan stared at all of them for a long moment before he shook his head. “Alright, you romantic fools. Let’s go burn down a house.”</p><p>	Hermione reached out to bracket all of them in her arms, in a position that has become more and more familiar to her over these past days. She knew how they fit underneath her magic, and no longer did she have to work to convince her magic to allow them access. The default state was them by her side. </p><p>	They landed on the property without any harsh affects for the apparition that they had all gotten used to. </p><p>	Severus turned to glance at Hermione, but she was too busy cocking her head towards the outside of the wards. She raised a hand to keep any of them from speaking as she tried to reach past the family wards, but they fought her every inch of the way. She might have been bonded to them, but they did not like her magic, they had been taught to reject her type of magic. </p><p>	She yanked back. “Today might get interesting,” she hissed.</p><p>	“Why?”</p><p>	“I assume the wards don’t talk to you, Rabastan.”</p><p>	He shook his head immediately. As far as he was aware the wards did their job without any direct influence from the family, and he never had any desire to learn how to mess with them.</p><p>	Hermione rubbed her forehead. “Well, the wards are trying to speak, but they won’t allow me access, and if you don’t know how, we’re out of luck. Unless, Severus?”</p><p>	“No luck,” he said. “I might be a decent hand at making the wards, but my magic has never been the best at actually merging with them.”</p><p>	“Out of luck then,” she continued. “So, we’ll burn down the house as we were planning, and then while you three start the lovely process of moving what’s left out of our current path, and doing the base layout for supplies, I will rebuild the wards around the property. I wanted to add more protections for the sanctuary anyway, so this is just a little more advanced than I planned for the day.”</p><p>Draco raised an eyebrow. “Did anyone know we were coming here today?”</p><p>	“Luna and Theo,” she answered.</p><p>	“Neither one of whom would have told others.”</p><p>	Hermione bit her lip at that remark. “With Luna, you never know. She might have decided that someone else needed to know and given them one of her not answers to try to help.”</p><p>	Draco shook his head immediately. “Not with this, because she would know that it would hurt Rabastan, and I think he might be her favorite.”</p><p>	Hermione closed her eyes and thought. Draco had a point, even Luna had limits that her visions weren’t allowed to shake, and one of those was hurting those she cares about. But, that means that, Kingsley. “The ministry knows that we filed the forms to do work without glamour today with the agreement to keep a wide broad web out for any muggles potentially walking near here.”</p><p>	“So, if someone wants to cause trouble?”</p><p>	“I guess they know where we are.”</p><p>	Rabastan turned to her, his eyes narrow. “When you tear down the wards to place your own, place your magic on the front line, put our magic on the front line, and let them try today. I would not mind if stubborn people who do not respect the privacy of others gets hurt in a demonstration of power.”</p><p>	“You might not mind, but the law certainly might,” Hermione teased, but then her eyes focused on the wards again. She couldn’t read them, but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t tell that someone had the nerve to stand right outside their wards without permission, and she had no doubts that if they were even slightly more open than what they were with Bellatrix staying here after the breakout that these people would be in her yard. “But, I will find the loophole to that for these exceptions.”</p><p>	“What if there is none?” Severus asked. </p><p>	Hermione grinned then, and the fire that Draco had known in her eyes before each of the trials, from back when she was seconds away from punching him straight in his face, and from when he watched her cast fiendfyre in a room full of items and people so that a dark lord would die was clear in her eyes. “Well, then, I just have to get even more creative.”</p><p>	“Illegal,” Draco coughed.</p><p>	Hermione shrugged. Then, she stepped closer to Rabastan. “So, let’s burn this place down to its foundations.”</p><p>	“No fiendfyre.”</p><p>	“Yeah, I doubt I’ll get a pardon for that a second time. The first time was a bit of a stretch, but I did manage to take down a dark lord, so apparently that got me some leeway.” She raised her wand and aimed at the front door. “Inferno,” she whispered. Flames jumped from her wand and circled the wood of the house.</p><p>	Draco tilted the corners of his lips up as he raised his wand as well. There were many fire spells. Almost as many fire spells as there were ways to make tea according to his mother. Each wizard tended towards a different type of spell. He preferred a more controlled fire. “Fuego,” he cast. His fire started on the building rather than coming from him. </p><p>	The smoke curled up into the air, and Hermione smiled. She watched as their flames merged together and spread through the home. She turned to Severus with a light challenge in her eyes.</p><p>	Severus rolled his eyes. He should have known that Hermione and Draco would simply start the fire, that they’d let their magic know to destroy what was in their path and deal with anything that comes after, later. His wand points at the stones in the outer portion of the house, because someone should deal with those before they start working on fire. “Bombardo,” he casted. </p><p>	The stones exploded inward giving even more area for the flames to circle. The image painted by the various destructive magic was that of vengeful gods. None of them wavered from where they stood as the house slowly unraveled at the limbs as their will was strong. Explosions shook the area as Severus did not waver from his position with his wand raised. </p><p>	Slowly, he noticed that the rocks should at least come near to them with how much force he’s blasting them with, but they never seem to leave the radius of the flames. He was about to open his mouth to ask a question, when Hermione’s laughter cuts him off.</p><p>	“I can multitask, husband, so your decision to explode rocks right next to open flames doesn’t get any of us hit either with the rocks or with the fire. I rather like my skin not tainted with the magic fire.”</p><p>	Rabastan couldn’t maintain his composure after she said that with a straight face. He fell over with tears streaming down his face in laughter. Because of course his wife had a plan to make sure they weren’t harmed while doing something that was undoubtedly not recommended by anyone. He raised his wand and it only wavered slightly as he sent out the blue flames of his family line towards the house. </p><p>	Once his flames hit the house, it seemed like all of the building started to crumble down into ashes. Almost as if it was waiting for permission form one of the people who was meant to give a command to the walls. The archways crumbled down and ash was coming over the whole area in a dome shape, and Rabastan was sure that he would get coated.</p><p>	Then, he saw one of the red lines of fire leave the house and a bubble formed around him. Around all of them in every direction, as the fiery ashes settled around the bubbling shield with tiny drops of water forming to push the ashes off from around them. </p><p>	Hermione raised an eyebrow as Rabastan turned to look at her. She had a smirk on her lips as she managed the area around them to settle the ashes rather than just get covered and cast a cleaning charm. She had no desire to feel the heat in any fashion, and she knew how to hold the charm for hours if that’s what was required.</p><p>	Draco cancelled his spell as he realized that the house was done, just finishing its final tumbles down into ruin. He walked straight over to Hermione and tugged her straight into a deep embrace. “I don’t think I say enough t think I say enough how you are the best thing to ever happen to me.”</p><p>	“Because it meant that you lived?”</p><p>	“Because it means that I have a wife who realizes when the house is close to exploding its ash all over us and throws up a shield as if its second nature to keep us safe.”</p><p>	Hermione leaned into his embrace with the amusement still clear on her face. “Well, that’s what happens when you become friends with Gryffindors. You get used to having to immediately jump into protecting mode because they end up in trouble like every six seconds.”</p><p>	“But they bravely charge,” Severus taunted. </p><p>	“Oh, of course. Just like those Slytherins use those cunning means to reach their ends.”</p><p>	Draco arched an eyebrow. “And all of those with loyalty in their blood go to Hufflepuff. Never a traitor among them.”</p><p>	“And nothing worth more to a Ravenclaw than the knowledge in this world.”</p><p>	Hermione threw her head back. “Maybe one day, we’ll drift away from telling children what their best quality is.”</p><p>	“How about when we go back for our final tests we sit together at a table that doesn’t have a banner over it?” Draco said.</p><p>	“Please don’t make me have to supposedly get upset with you,” Severus drawled. </p><p>	“There is no rule against it.” And if anyone would know every rule that Hogwarts ever had, it would be Hermione Granger. She had read every single rule from cover to cover to make sure that she wouldn’t get herself kicked out without meaning to.</p><p>	Rabastan raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure there’s the spirit of some rules there.”</p><p>	Hermione shook her head. “But that doesn’t really matter, now does it. Not when it comes to a war hero.”</p><p>	“One of you is a barely pardoned war criminal,” Severus retorted.</p><p>	“Married to the war hero.”</p><p>	“Let her have this,” Draco pleaded. “We both know that she’ll go on a war rampage for us, no need to get direct proof at a time like this.”</p><p>	“She can’t fight the whole damn country.”</p><p>	“Watch me.”</p><p>	Rabastan shook his head. “I’d rather watch you unravel those wards so that we can have some decent ones up before we leave for the night. The rest of us can actually start plotting things out. Draco, I know your estate has an actual pool, want to be the one to get one here?”</p><p>	‘Yes.”</p><p>	Hermione walked over to the edge of the property, allowing her shield to fall behind her, the ashes all pooled around them. That could be a future problem, especially as ashes made something decent to transfigure if they needed a random tool they hadn’t thought of already.</p><p>	The wards were waiting for her. They wouldn’t accept her, but they’d been waiting for someone to come reach for them with all of the messages being sent along their lines. Seemed to her like there might even be more of a conversation now, then there was earlier.</p><p>	She pushed outwards with her magic to form a magical barrier that stretched throughout the borders of the wards. She wouldn’t be able to hold it with nothing supporting her for long, but this land was her land, and she could hold for a while when needed. Plus, if absolutely necessary, she didn’t have to hold it alone. Her husbands may or may not know how to interweave magic like this, but house elves were made for this, and as a newly formed pureblood lady, she had plenty to call to her side.</p><p>	With that decision made, she tugged the common magical thread holding the wards together. She watched the magic crash down on itself with a burst of color on every edge of the property. </p><p>	Staring back at her were most of the wizards that she had seen in the courtroom, with Ron shaking his head at the forefront. He had a grimace on his face as if he was shocked and disappointed all at once. </p><p>	“You let them destroy the evidence,” a woman shrieked.</p><p>	Hermione blinked. “What evidence? I assure you that all trials involving members of this family were settled before any decisions were made.” Her magic had already formed a stronger bubble, but she didn’t call out to gain her husbands attention. Not yet, not when they could keep working as long as these people chose to be smart and decent. </p><p>	Ron shook his head. “I told you, Hermione Granger is clearly under some spell or more deluded than she knows. She doesn’t even realize that this house probably held the evidence that Rabastan Lestrange killed your daughter of his own free will.”</p><p>	Hermione through her head back and laughed. With her hair whipping around her as her magic flared up, she probably gave quite a few people a slight panic. There were days when her looks reminded even herself of Bellatrix, the mad woman. “Oh, dear, Ronald. Is that the lie you’ve told yourself? I didn’t choose you because the evil men got me under mind control. Oh, that’s priceless. I have been deemed sound of mind, my husbands have been deemed not guilty. This house was our property and held nothing but horrible memories, so we’re going to build something that we can make good memories in. Now, if you’ll all pardon me, I need to get back to work.”</p><p>	Harry stepped forward where he could be seen by Hermione. “It was pressed upon the auror department that we may have been remiss in getting into the houses of the purebloods on trial as the wards are nasty things. Some concerns have been raised that while your husbands were found not guilty, that if the Lestrange manor was searched, more evidence might change that ruling.”</p><p>	“And?”</p><p>	“What do you mean and?” another member of the crowd shouted. </p><p>	“I mean and? Its not my job to ensure that the prosecution has enough evidence to convict when they have someone in custody. It would have been my job to escort aurors into our properties, which I would have been more than happy to do, but no one ever came. Now, the trials are over, and we notified the appropriate offices of our decision to raze the place down to ashes and pebbles.”</p><p>	Harry gulped. “Concerns were also raised that both you and Malfoy know how to fill out forms and have them signed and approved without ever actually giving them to employees.” His eyes portrayed just how much he did not want to be here dealing with this. But she’s sure that if Harry hadn’t shown up, Ron would have demanded a tougher auror to show up that wouldn’t listen to any logical order and just wanted to lock up someone on his first day or something.</p><p>	She sighed. “Why were these concerns not processed through official channels?”</p><p>	“Official, Mione’. We have an auror right here. How much more official do you need?”</p><p>	Hermione took a moment to collect her anger. No good would come of her actually lunging across the barrier and throttling the man. She’d just get herself arrested, and one of her husbands would probably have to do an actual jail break at that point, and Luna’d have to claim she had nothing to do with this. “Well, for starters, an owl letting us know that we were back under investigation would have been the norm for such an occasion. Second, an actual knock against the wards if you did choose not to relay the investigation first, would have ensured that we came to see what was happening. You know before we had already lit the place up.”</p><p>	“Hermione, you know that Kingsley is busy cleaning the people up. The letters normally sent out just aren’t getting done at the same pace as normal. I’m sure that the one they’ve assured me is in the works should be here any day.”</p><p>	Hermione closed her eyes. “Who?”</p><p>	“What?”</p><p>	“Who, Harry? Who assured you that the letter was on the way and in the works and all of that?”</p><p>	Harry sent her an odd glance. He couldn’t see why it mattered who bothered telling him about it. “Ron caught word from our boss.”</p><p>	“Did he, now?” Draco drawled walking up behind Hermione. His wand was holstered, but his hand rested on top of it as if he expected trouble. “Well that can be cleared up quickly. Just send a quick Patronus to your boss, so we know for sure.”</p><p>	“You want us to interrupt our boss in the middle of a busy day to have him tell you what we’re telling you?”</p><p>	“Pardon, Mr. Weasley, I was not aware that you were now so high on the payroll that your word was the same as your boss’s. I was equally not aware that you had any substantial evidence to re-open a case when the main argument was given under truth serum,” Hermione snapped.</p><p>	Draco watched with wide eyes as he realized that both Ron and Hermione were gearing up for a proper fight between them. He could tell by the way that Hermione was no longer containing her magic around the wards, instead you could almost make out the shape of the runes she planned on making the wards out of being burned into the grass and through the dirt with wisps of her magic. He had no doubt that if Weasley sent a spell at them right now, Hermione was going to go nuclear. And he wasn’t going to be able to stop her.</p><p>	“Either show me a warrant, get me your boss’s word, or get the hell out of my way so that I can address my wards.”</p><p>	Ron shoved himself forward. “I am an auror and I demand more respect than you’ve shown me, Hermione. We might have been friends once, but you don’t get to push your weight around like you did at Hogwarts. You aren’t in a position of authority. I am. Now, move aside so I can bring in Mr. Lestrange.”</p><p>	“Lord,” she hissed. “Unlike you, he is the head of his house. Which commands enough respect without needing a badge to command it. Similarly, I have the same title. I am Lady Lestrange, and I do not grant you permission to stop onto my land.”</p><p>	Some of the crowd backed up. Hermione could see in their eyes that they now understood just what they were potentially asking to come down upon them. She had the land’s backing, she had magic’s backing, and she had the status of society behind her while Ron was running on nothing. </p><p>	Ron threw the spell at the wards to stun her, and the magic flared up into a huge shield that blinded everyone. </p><p>	Severus and Rabastan turned to stare at Hermione, as Ron flew backwards and landed on the ground. </p><p>	“Recall,” Hermione started in a deadly calm voice, “that I am the one who taught you that spell. Recall, that this is my property and I had just issued you a warning about your lack of status and acceptance on that land. Now, think hard about your next option. This time you are unharmed. Do not make the mistake of believing that is because I am unable to cause you harm, Ronald Weasley.”</p><p>	“You attacked an auror on duty,” he yelled puffing up at his chest as he pushed himself up.</p><p>	“You have yet to give me any reason to believe that you are here are on official duty. Including constantly referring to me by a nickname that I do not enjoy in the slightest at every turn early on in this conversation. So, I have not broken any laws.”</p><p>	Draco leaned down so he was whispering directly into her ear. “You are pushing those technicalities pretty far, my dear wife, and I do not want to end up back inside those cells as nice as you’ve made them now.”</p><p>	“As long as I show every respect to Harry who is conducting himself with dignity, we’re going to be alright.”</p><p>	Draco doesn’t believe her. Many people are looking for a reason to be able to throw all four of them behind bars, and they might easily use Ronald Weasley to have that reason if Hermione was determined to allow him to rile her up. But then, if she never initiated anything, then he had no reason to call foul play on them, she was only ever defensive.</p><p>	Harry glanced at Hermione. “As I am just a trainee, as is Auror Weasley, I can make the bracket statement that we haven’t gone over the protocol for informing people of when they are under investigation in situations like this. Can I make the assumption that someone in your marriage has?”</p><p>	“Yes,” all four said together even as Rabastan remained back with his hand on Severus to keep him from pulling away. </p><p>	“Do you have reason to believe that this is suspicious enough to warrant not immediately agreeing to go into questioning?”</p><p>	“One, yes. Two, what guarantee would I have that Mr. Weasley would not immediately resume his attacks once we were no longer on a land where I could feasibly hold him off for as long as needed,” Hermione countered. </p><p>	“Right.” Harry closed his eyes. “Ron, we should head back to the boss and tell him in person what’s going on. And to tell him that we may need backup to ensure that the crowd does not get violent on the understanding that should we need them to step outside of their land, it could get messy.”</p><p>	“No way, mate. We’re taking them in now that they’ve resisted basic questions.” Ron walked up to the area where Hermione’s magic was burning in the ground and held up his wand. He paused for a moment, then casted finite. </p><p>	Hermione would have laughed if not for the sheer rush of anger at the audacity hadn’t crawled up her magic to die on this hill. They were not happy with the current layout of things in the slightest and she couldn’t blame the magic for that. Only a fool would try that spell on a wide arching magical spell right in front of them. And only more of a fool would expect to not open a door. </p><p>	She could feel his magic, and while she was sure that the proper response would be to try to force her magic down, she wasn’t about to let him get away with that. So, she verblessly raised her wand and bound his magic for a 24 hour range. Well within the rights of any attacked in this fashion by someone.</p><p>	Ron screamed as if he had been hit. And Hermione could admit that if she hadn’t gone a part of her life without magic, she would likely have screamed to. </p><p>	“You should know, Mr. Weasley before you make further mistakes, that if you try to force your magic in a show of will against another, they have the full access to yours as you tried to gain into theirs. And you’re on my land.”</p><p>	Ron gasped. “What did you do?”</p><p>	“I placed a bind on your magic for daring to attack me on my own land with no provocation and no legal standing. It should wear off in a day. I would suggest not doing anything to make it tighten though.”</p><p>	Severus shook his head and turned back to the house finally. He wasn’t going to spend more time dealing with this than absolutely necessary and with the way that his wife was standing strong in front of an old friend, he didn’t have a reason to be worried.</p><p>	Hermione turned back to Harry. “I would suggest taking the trainee back to his boss and not letting him speak of what happened here. He’ll be kicked from the program if anyone gets word that he used his position against the pureblood nobility. And he’ll get in even worse trouble if he mentions continuing to harass a lady on her own land without proper reasoning.”</p><p>	Once that was done, Hermione glanced out at the crowd and raised an eyebrow. She watched carefully as each one of them apparated away. She felt no shame for what she had done. And she barely had an inkling of regret for the man that she had known. He would be bitter for however long he needed to make it out of his understanding of what happened to his brother, and she would or would not forgive him when the time came. Those days were long in the future. At least, they were in her eyes. </p><p>	The day passed without another incident. Severus and Rabastan managed to lay down the framework for the first floor and managed most of the second. Draco removed all of the ground for his pool and had cleared all of the ashes off to a nice corner where Hermione had set up a composting charm to keep working while all of them were present and working on the house.</p><p>	The rest took them a couple of weeks to finish. And to all of their surprise, the hardest part of the whole move was getting the beds from one property to the other. They made private rooms with beds and closets for each of them, and then they didn’t put a single thing in those rooms. </p><p>	The master bedroom held more things than should ever be allowed. There were two billowing bookshelves, one for Hermione and one shared between Rabastan and Severus. That resulted in some teasing about the fact that surely the Ravenclaw loved books more than the Gryffindor princess. But Rabastan lost that battle long before he even tried to use it. There were also four sets of desks for them to work on should they choose. A comfortable sofa made for reading pleasure, and much to Draco’s delight a hammock next to the window. </p><p>	The house had little bits of each of them in it. Draco’s nobility shined through in the way that property had a decorative state to the outside that could shout from the cloud tops that these were fancy people and that no one should ever say otherwise. Severus’s love for all things dark could be seen in the dark oak wood in every inch of the house and the way that the lighting all had settings to dull it. Rabastan’s desire for a family could be seen by the fact that there were no real lonely places in the house. No armchairs, no simple dining sets, not they had a proper booth dining table with the fanciest cushions that Draco could bat his eyes for. Hermione’s magic could be seen everywhere. While the others had shown their souls through the way that they slipped little details into the design, Hermione had shown her soul by making sure that this house was theirs in every sense of the magical word. No one could ever fight them here. No one could ever get advantage of one of their family as long as they stood in this house, the magic flowed into them as they stepped on the floors. </p><p>	Even once they’re long gone, any of the family members that they claim before they die, will have the ability to be safe on this ground. That was more than enough to make sure that Hermione would never dare to complain about what’s happening.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Happily Ever After</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The war is over, and its time for our characters to get a chance to move on and have the life that they deserve and want.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Life went on. But, none of them did much of anything alone anymore. Most nights they went to bed together even when not all of them were sleepy. They were learning how to move within each other’s space, in the same way that Draco and Hermione had started before they all were freed. </p>
<p>	Hermione learned over the summer months to stop reaching for her wand every single time that someone blocked an exit. Her anxiety slowly lessoned, and the aftereffects of the torture spell tapered off. She smiled more readily mostly when one of her husband’s said something sappy. She loved the little ways that optimism showed through even when all of them were torn up on the inside from a war. </p>
<p>	Draco spent most of the summer just lazing around with his legs propped up next to one of the others. He had learned to draw comfort from the simple way that he could appear next to any of them, and they’d welcome him in with open arms no matter what they were doing. That simple acceptance seemed so foreign from both of his parents’ cold exteriors when they were all hiding from Voldemort for all of that time. He found it so hard to dare to reach for anything out of place until he realized that he had people that would hold him, if he ever found himself free-falling into the open space.</p>
<p>	Rabastan spent the Summer staring at the open sky and feeling actual air on his skin as a free man. He hadn’t been free since long before the last time that he should have been able to expect freedom, so the sheer breathtaking awe of having that right was splendid. Still, he ended up in someone’s bed every night to stave off his nightmares. And on the nights when he couldn’t push them down, Hermione would brush her hands through his hair and whisper sweet nothings into his ear, while Severus made tea.</p>
<p>	Severus’ summer didn’t have much difference from any of his previous summers. He used the time away from students, away from people who might want him to do some impossible action to make his own independent studies on whatever issue he thought important. His current research involved making a better alternative to Wolfsbane, because werewolves didn’t deserve the massive amount of shit that was laid at their feet for no other reason than the rest of the world didn’t want to lose one of their monsters into the night. Still, he thought that it would be a fitting legacy that he could leave for Lupin. They hadn’t been friends, but they had fought on the same side and this was something tangible that he could give to one of the people that died.</p>
<p>	Severus had taken to quizzing Hermione and Draco every night over questions that should appear on their NEWTs that both had decided they were taking rather than going back to Hogwarts full time for another school year. He had been pleasantly surprised when both of them volleyed off each other with almost every question. There were a couple of trick questions that he was able to throw out there every now and again that would result in him stumping at least one of his spouses.</p>
<p>	“I’ve got a deal to make,” Rabastan announced one night after such studying as he handed each of them a plate of food from the house elves in the kitchen. “And before you ask, its not one that you’re going to want to weasel your way out of, so listen carefully.”</p>
<p>	“Of course, dear,” Hermione teased. She had grown used to the way that Rabastan would just interject into conversations with a certain ease. Plus, both her and Draco were likely more prepared for the exams than they would ever need to be, so something that got her out of Severus’ nerves would be a win-win situation for her. </p>
<p>	Draco titled his head back to stare at Rabastan with a gentle smile. “But, you’ll have to convince Severus to not be interrupting you, if you want us to be able to listen closely the whole time. He seems a bit nervous about the exams coming up.”</p>
<p>	Severus glanced down sheepishly. “I was already involved in this.”</p>
<p>	“Mmhmm,” Rabastan confirmed while practically bouncing on his feet. “This will be so much fun, please let me tell you about it. Please.”</p>
<p>	“Of course.” Hermione leaned over the couch to press a kiss against his cheek. “Anything that makes you this happy, you are always welcome to talk to us about.”</p>
<p>	“Okay, okay, so I thought that we have been growing in our relationship and everything, and that something fun to encourage your efforts on the exams would be amazing. So, I thought that for each O that you get, you can ask me for a kiss, wherever it is that you would like.”</p>
<p>	“Oh, really now,” Draco teased, leaning up and kissing Rabastan gently. “And you’ll go along with it, whatever we ask for,” he asked as he pulled away. </p>
<p>	“Yes, he will,” Severus said. He reached over and grabbed hold of Hermione’s hand. Their fingers slowly twine together. “I have also been dragged into this.”</p>
<p>	Hermione arched a brow. “Somehow, I doubt he got you to agree that every O we get, you give us a kiss that we ask for. You’d consider that positive behavior for things that you believe that we should be striving for regardless.”</p>
<p>	“You know me well.”</p>
<p>	Draco turned and brushed his lips against Severus’ temple that was now easily within his grasp. “Oh, yes. And tell me what exactly you got dragged into with regards to this bet.”</p>
<p>	“He may have convinced me to write down what I thought both of you would get on your NEWTs, and then told me that if you got higher than what I thought on any exam, then I had the same deal he has with you towards him.”</p>
<p>	Hermione whacked his shoulder. “You bet against me!”</p>
<p>	Severus’ face twisted up in an awkward state, as he glanced towards Rabastan.</p>
<p>	Rabastan shrugged at him with a happy smile as he played with both younger spouses hair. “You made your grave, darling, you can lie in it.”</p>
<p>	“I didn’t bet against you. I firmly believe that you will get the best scores possible on every exam that you are sitting.”</p>
<p>	Draco twisted so that he could face Severus. “But you did bet against me? Or rather there are some exams that you do not believe that I will do that good on?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	Draco watched closely to see Severus’ nerves portray over his face, and for a second, he debated teasing his husband further until he was truly nervous, but then he shook his head. He reached over and wrapped his arms around his neck, so that he was pretty much leaning on Severus. “I’ll enjoy proving you wrong, but that’s all there is to it.” Then, he leaned up and kissed Severus. </p>
<p>	Hermione brushed some hair from Severus’ face and smoothed over some of the wrinkles in his face. “Don’t worry so much. We aren’t going to decide that we hate you just because you don’t think we’re perfect. That would be ridiculous, beyond ridiculous in fact.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan grinned. “I told you, our spouses, are some of the best ever.”</p>
<p>	“Indeed.” Hermione stepped off the couch. “And as much as I enjoy our lovely late dinners into the night, we probably should consider going to sleep. Given that both of us have four exams tomorrow. Three the next, and two the day after.”</p>
<p>	“Yes, we should be smart,” Draco muttered just barely apart from Severus’ lips. “Or, maybe we should work on positive association tonight.”</p>
<p>	Hermione laughed, care-free and happy for the moment. “Hmm, either way we need to be moved towards the bedroom, yes? Then, how about you carry me there and we decide then?”</p>
<p>	Rabastan was more than happy to carry her back to their bedroom, especially as it became increasingly clear that they were not planning on sleeping for quite a while yet. </p>
<p>	The light which Hermione and Draco entered the testing room, show-cased just how much a good might with their spouses could make their days better. Even if Severus wasn’t allowed to have any part in their examinations. </p>
<p>	The next few weeks passed by in a blur. Hermione and Draco couldn’t start applying anywhere until the NEWT scores came in, so they spent most days with Rabastan making their land mass filled with different markings to make sure magical creatures could have a paradise here. By the time that the NEWT scores were ready to come in, they already had a few dragon eggs donated by Charlie Weasley. And a few straggling centaurs starting to venture closer to the borders of their land and even willing to speak to them every now and again.</p>
<p>	Severus spent every day at Hogwarts and came home in the evening with papers to grade and lovely spouses to make sure that he was in a great mood for when he had to go back to the school for breakfast each morning. He got jokes from his fellow staff members about finally not being the recluse of the dungeon. </p>
<p>	Hermione had a curved smile on her face as she opened her letter to reveal all Os. And based on the whooping next to her, her husband had gotten the same. </p>
<p>	Severus leaned over to kiss both of them in congratulations. Before actually cupping Draco’s face to kiss him again. “You should know that the only one I bet against you on was muggle studies since you only sat it with Hermione’s help, and I wasn’t sure that you were going to be able to pull off a course you had never sat for.”</p>
<p>	“Hmm, I’ll forgive you if you kiss me again,” Draco murmured.</p>
<p>	Severus happily obliged as Hermione kind of wrapped herself up in Rabastan’s arms. She tilted her head back where she could meet his eyes, with a smile of her own. “You were right. This is what happiness feels like, and we made it here even after the war, even when it felt like there wouldn’t be such happiness ever again.”</p>
<p>	Rabastan kissed the top of her head. “That’s what I held onto for far too many years to count, and I find myself thrilled that we have this now.”</p>
<p>	The next years were the best and the worst, because they no longer had a war to worry about, only natural issues. Which turned out none of them had ever been prepared for because all of their life had been spent fighting a war of some kind. </p>
<p>	Rabastan had an amazing time with his animals. Because after the first few months of peace along the property with everything being made for magical animals to hide among the places of the muggles, he had just about all types. He had dragons eating out of his hands, most days.</p>
<p>	He made sure that each and every animal had what they preferred to eat and nice shelter. Most days he felt like a modern-day Scamander, but he wouldn’t want it any other way. Because the animals couldn’t judge him for what happened in the past. They couldn’t pass judgement on him, and he could still make their lives better. </p>
<p>	He loved going home to the people who love him. And he loves the fact that he is almost never alone anytime that he asks. Hermione shouldn’t be able to take off work, but on bad mental health days, she pulls a bit of magic to get herself out of whatever trouble she reaches by a wave of her wand and calling to Theo or Blaise. </p>
<p>	On the tenth anniversary of their marriage, sitting on the perimeter of their reservoir was the featherfauns. The magic containing their poison close to their body. He invited them in with ease, and he knew that this was a true sign of their love because these creatures weren’t even supposed to still be alive, and yet they were here. </p>
<p>	Hermione clapped when she saw them. “I knew they were real,” she cheered.</p>
<p>	Draco got into a healer’s job shortly after Hogwarts with his scores. His main mentor raked him over the coals for getting dragged into the war so young, but he also made sure that Draco knew that his mistake wasn’t following his parents wishes, nor ending up on the wrong side of the war. But fighting all together because that’s no fun on any level.</p>
<p>	He made sure that his patients knew that on every occasion he made no prejudices on any sorts. He was one of the few healers from Mungo’s that would treat the prisoners when Luna made them show up because they were hurt or sick or really needed a potion or two to remember what magic even was because they had lost privileges way too long ago. </p>
<p>	One day, Ronald Weasley ended up in one of his rooms. Still, an angry and bitter person, and none of the others wanted to deal with him spewing venom the whole time. So, Draco took the case. He went through his normal speech on how no matter how much Ron said or what his beliefs were, Draco would remain impartial. </p>
<p>	“They let death eaters become healer now?”</p>
<p>	“Criminals can become healers, yes. Although, I am not a criminal, nor was I ever old enough to be called a death eater.”</p>
<p>	“That was the argument ‘Mione made at your hearing, yeah. But ‘Mione could make a deaf person hear in the eyes of the public these days. She’s hardly ever wrong according to any media sources. Heck, they proclaim her as a pureblood now.”</p>
<p>	“By magic, she is.”</p>
<p>	Ron furrowed his brow for a moment. “I really thought it’d be me and her to the end of our days. I mean I had made some mistakes, but I was the one who was there.”</p>
<p>	“No, you weren’t,” Draco stated. “You were the one who sometimes stood up for her to bullies, and sometimes you were the bully. You were the one who would run beside her into the darkness, but then you’d escape back to the light. You were just another foolish kid, just like me. Only you hurt her in a way she couldn’t heal from, and I didn’t ever have that chance before I was older and wiser.”</p>
<p>	Ron gulped for a moment. Then, he glanced at Draco’s face. “Umm, I got a bit cursed. I might still be getting into barfights.”</p>
<p>	Draco waved his wand and the curse faded away. “Not an overtly complicated curse. I’m surprised your mother or any of your brothers couldn’t help you.”</p>
<p>	“I was told not to come home cursed anymore that until I could go a week without starting a fight, it would be better if I didn’t come home.”</p>
<p>	Draco reached behind him and handed him a pamphlet. “Magical therapist. Maybe its time that you started trying to make things right rather than still hold a grudge over what happened.”</p>
<p>	“Need someone to blame,” Ron grumbled. </p>
<p>	Draco huffed. “Then, blame the adult who dragged you into the war at 11, same as I blame the one who dragged me in at 17.”</p>
<p>	Ron turned to stare at Draco. “You’re not being rude to me. You have every reason to, but you aren’t even remotely trying.”</p>
<p>	“Surprisingly, Weasley, there are things that are worth it, and there are things that are not. You are not something I want to stake my career on tearing down. You are not the bad guy, you’re just another victim of a war that we were children in, and you just happen to be one of the ones who hasn’t quite figured out what path they want to take to be better.”</p>
<p>	“Don’t really got anyone to lean on. Didn’t really after the war either, not with Harry just shutting down and Hermione being busy being married.”</p>
<p>	“Family?”</p>
<p>	“Sad instead of angry.”</p>
<p>	Draco glanced towards the clock. “Alright. Two options, I’m about to get off the clock. I can take you over to Theo’s place. He runs that support group, and he’ll have an idea or two about what to do since you can’t really go home right now, and he’ll be better at the whole feelings thing.”</p>
<p>	“Or?”</p>
<p>	“Or I can take you home, and we can both hope that Hermione’s there to stop Severus from cursing you on sight, and that Rabastan still takes his vow of never using harmful magic ever again. And that Hermione is still willing to keep you from fatal energies. And I hand you a drink, not an alcoholic one and set you up in one of the many spare rooms while dodging curses.”</p>
<p>	Ron froze and stared at Draco for a long moment. “Do you think perhaps she’d let me apologize?”</p>
<p>	“Maybe. I never know with my wife. There are days when she’s still that little girl that wants everyone to love her, and other days, she’s the woman who was willing to send a bad person to the centaurs to be hurt and the one who kept pace with Aunt Bellatrix, when Aunt Bellatrix wanted her down for the count. Those things usually don’t happen exclusively.”</p>
<p>	Ron nodded. “I think I owe it to the both of us to try.”</p>
<p>	“Do it for the right reasons, Weasley.”</p>
<p>	Draco apparated them both out after signing out with the front desk. He took a deep breath before walking Ron Weasley across his wards and cussing himself out the whole time.</p>
<p>	Hermione was waiting for them on the pathway with her arms crossed. “I would like you to know, Draco, that you are so lucky that Luna seems to like you.”</p>
<p>	“Gave you a heads up so you wouldn’t curse me out of my shared property on sight?”</p>
<p>	“Something like that.” Hermione flickered her gaze over to Ron. “You look like shit.”</p>
<p>	“Feel like it too. Draco mentioned that I might be able to use a spare bedroom for a couple days. Or so.”</p>
<p>	“Did he now?”</p>
<p>	Draco raised his shoulders in a shrug. “To be fair, if tonight goes horribly, we can always send him to Theo as another one of the lost causes that he’s doomed to help because his bride sees too much.”</p>
<p>	Hermione gestured for Draco to leave them alone, and Draco followed those instructions. He knew better than to tempt his wife when she clearly wanted them to not be doing what was currently being done. Then, she met Ron’s eyes. “The war still haunting you?”</p>
<p>	“More or less.”</p>
<p>	“We going to talk about it, or are you just hoping that I’ll let you into my house and back into my life and not ask a single question about the change of heart or why you aren’t at the burrow or any of those other pesky questions.”</p>
<p>	“Trying to find the right words. Your husband’s a better man than I gave him credit for before.”</p>
<p>	Hermione blinked. “I agree with you there, he’s a much better man than you’ve ever given him credit for. So are the rest of them,” she said. </p>
<p>	Ron nodded to her. “The war sucked for so many reasons, and all of us have a million different reasons to want to run away. I gave into mine when you were counting on me to still be there. I don’t have a way to make that okay, and I doubt that you do either. That being said perhaps what should have been said years ago, is that I do not, nor have I ever understood your decisions after the war. The rest of us came home, and we healed together. You didn’t come back, and you didn’t come to the burrow, and you barely even talked to anyone that wasn’t Luna from our past. That hurt, and while I know that I didn’t make it any easier on you, I thought I’d have a chance once things cooled down, but you were never there.”</p>
<p>	Hermione closed her eyes for a moment. Ron had never been good at apologies, and he wasn’t really good with emotions either. “Did you ever consider that it might be hard for me to come back to your house where you had family, when I had to make sure I didn’t to win the war? Or that I couldn’t handle going back to the school where I was made into the weapon for the other side? Or maybe even that I was waiting to see whether contact was even desired since all of you knew how to send a Patronus and all of you had an owl you could send a letter with?”</p>
<p>	“Back then, I didn’t really know I was the only one in the wrong,” Ron pointed out.</p>
<p>	Hermione scoffed at him for that one. “Do you now?”</p>
<p>	Ron shrugged. “Sure. In your story, I am the only one in the wrong. In my story, we were both in the wrong. And in Harry’s story, I’m a dick and you’re the distant sister who doesn’t want to come home because of a fear of memories.”</p>
<p>	Hermione smiled a bright thing as she saw Rabastan start heading towards the house. She had missed the way that he often made everything seem so much more bright. </p>
<p>	He wrapped his arm around her instead of just walking past into the house, his eyes catching on Ron. He arched a brow in a replica of Severus’ typical tread carefully stare. “Were you hoping someone other than you would be the one who cursed him off our property?”</p>
<p>	“Our husband,” Hermione stated, “decided to invite him to stay in our house for a while. Apparently, he’s having a rough time.”</p>
<p>	“You okay?”</p>
<p>	Ron flinched back. “I don’t think I’m ever going to be used to the fact that is there first response to hearing that I’m having a rough time.”</p>
<p>	“Well, we’re all the survivors from the war, and honestly, there were days when I thought I might like to rage against the world. If you’re here and following Draco home, then you’re at least admitting that you don’t want to just be full of wrath anymore.”</p>
<p>	“Ah. Then, yeah, I’m alright. Draco already patched me up.”</p>
<p>	Hermione and Rabastan exchanged a series of looks before they sighed softly. Rabastan tilted his head towards the house. “Well, in that case, you should probably come inside.”</p>
<p>	Draco smiled as Ron entered their home as he tugged Hermione closer to him. “Think this will help?”</p>
<p>	“Yes.”</p>
<p>	Hermione was right. Ron stayed the remaining three days until Hermione agreed to take him home to the burrow. To her surprise, the whole Weasley family seemed to walk in and out of that house every day. Plenty of them had other jobs and homes, but they’d at least make it to dinner each time. She was of course invited. </p>
<p>	She asked about her husbands and the whole house kind of froze. No one knew what to say, until Ron pointed out that if Hermione was going to be family, then all of her husbands were as well. That’s how family works after all. </p>
<p>	The family asked about what Hermione was planning on doing from her research position at the ministry. And she told them that Kingsley wasn’t planning on running again, which all of them knew. But the part that they didn’t know and certainly didn’t see coming, was that Hermione had every intention of running behind him. </p>
<p>	When they asked about her reasons, she had several she could have given them. She could have told them that after everything that had happened to them as children, she wanted to make sure that it never happened to another group of children. She could have told them that after watching the government fail, she wanted to be one of the ones that fixed the system to make sure that it didn’t happen again. And none of those statements would have been lies. But they also wouldn’t have been the best truth either. </p>
<p>	So, she tells them about her prophecy, sitting in the ministry. About how Harry was always meant to be the one who brought about the end of Voldemort, and she was always meant to be the one that stood against the one who came next. Not by fighting with a wand out in a full blown war where every person started fighting, but by fighting in the laws and legal courts, and making the changes this world needed. </p>
<p>	She had the choice though, one that Luna referred to every time they talked. That one day she would have to choose when the next evil was talking out against her. She could either let it go and fight him the way that politicians often fight, or she could burn him with her magic. With the fire that was second nature for her to call after her many times that she needed to call to something strong enough to burn evil. </p>
<p>	Her first run for ministry was a rush of joy. With the entire Order’s blessing, including the last Minister’s approval and the status and power that came from being of one of the noble houses, a new combined one that they made, she had an easy time brining every side together to vote for her. And her policies showed the same. She didn’t push for anything that was too insane for either side, but she did slowly bring up issues among the people. </p>
<p>	One of her first bills that got to the floor was the recognition of other species as members of the wizarding society who had a right to all of the rights that wizards had. This included but was not limited to giants, werewolves, centaurs, and goblins. And by that point most of the world was happy that they weren’t no longer discriminating at almost every time. </p>
<p>	After a few terms, she even passed through a law that was far more traditional than anyone in the Order had probably ever thought that Hermione Granger was going to be, and she didn’t disagree with them on any particular point of that assessment until they met Pansy Parkinson and how often the two talked as she wanted to see Draco. Or that Blaise Zabini stayed in her house anytime that he was in the country no matter what else was happening all around him. </p>
<p>	By the time the next would be dark lord started making moves, Hermione knew that she didn’t need her fire to destroy him. She could, make no doubt that if a single one of them had told her please, she could have burned him alive and not lost an ounce of sleep. But Draco’s hand had been on her shoulder, begging her to find a way to destroy him without needing to find another grave to bury him in. And Rabastan’s eyes had drilled into her head, not asking for anything, but also begging for her to not make him have nightmares again wondering whether before the end he was going to end up back in a mentally locked up situation where he had no choice in what he did. Severus was the only who didn’t have a definitive decision regarding her prophecy. He didn’t care one way or the other. If Hermione decided to burn someone alive because they were going to be evil, he’d applaud and be able to tease her about being similar to Dumbledore. If she chose to bury him in legal issues and slander lawsuits, he was going to laugh and call her Lucius Malfoy. Because the bad guys and the good guys weren’t all that different in the end. </p>
<p>	Hermione managed to get him to back down on almost every repressive policy he had ever had. In return, she managed to get some of the restrictions on dark magic revoked. Such as banning blood magic, just because some people think it’d be a great idea to use sacrifices for it. That’s why she put in the side rules that you could only use your blood or failing that you had to have written consent from the person whose blood you were using, and they had to be a legal adult in the wizarding world. Plus, she raised the rules on worshipping any of the gods. They could call to them if they’d like, whether or not they’d come would be someone else’s problem, not hers. 	</p>
<p>	Luna laughed the day that law had passed as if the illegality of her religion was ever going to be the deal that made her stop worshipping her gods at any point. Still, she smiled when Hermione mentioned the gods coming when called wouldn’t be an issue, she had to deal with herself on her own. “My dear little lioness, they always have. Who else could have helped encourage Harry back from the dead but a god? Who else could have helped hold your sanity when you were undergoing torture for multiple minutes?”</p>
<p>	Hermione arched her eyebrow. “I thought that might have been my bravery and determination.”</p>
<p>	Her laugh maintained a gentle peel. “It’s alright, the gods don’t usually judge if you take credit for their actions, after all you are also one of the things that they can take credit for.”</p>
<p>	Hermione went home that night and curled straight into Severus’ lap while he was still grading papers and didn’t move the whole night. She was slightly concerned with what could happen because of her policies, but at the same time, she knew this was for the best. It had prevented a war and it allowed many of the people within the vicinity to practice religions that were more in tune with their past. </p>
<p>	Severus for his life had a very calm persistent happiness that crept up on him. In part because he could finally do his job without a war looming over his head, and in part because he had people to go home to. He wasn’t pining over a woman who didn’t love him back, and he wasn’t a bloody nuisance for everyone in a war. </p>
<p>	Every night he came home instead of having quarters at the school, because while he was a head of house, he had charmed the school to start an alarm in their house if someone came to his door, and he’d just floo back. It wasn’t as difficult as it was made out to be at some times. </p>
<p>	The students had some fear of him for clear and obvious reasons, but with Potter having come back for his seventh year, he had a staunch supporter any time he turned around. There were some days when it grated on him that James Potter’s son was helping in any situation, but then he’d take a deep breath, and he’d remember that Harry wasn’t only James son, he was also Lily’s. And this was 100% something that Lily would have done and supported. That made things easier for him. </p>
<p>	Plus, as the years passed the students stopped remembering him as the teacher who was once a spy, but more as the professor who was a labelled war hero and a stellar potion’s master. Although more and more people would ask him about his wife’s mastery. Probably because she had four by the time that she actually went into the minister race. </p>
<p>	He also particularly enjoyed when on occasion, Rabastan would show up to Hogwarts with some food for lunch, stay for long enough for him to eat and then pop out to go surprise their other spouses with food. The first time a student had caught Rabastan doing that, Rabastan had kissed him right there before leaving. </p>
<p>	Severus had so many questions asking him the next day about polyamory, and whether magic could really bless couples with more than one person. The answer was of course yes, as I am living proof of that statement, but he wasn’t about to tell the kids that so harshly. They deserved to have someone to tell them that their questions weren’t stupid and who guided learning rather than sending down a rabbit hole to burn. </p>
<p>	Severus stayed working the longest out of any of them. He enjoyed teaching and there was no need for him to quit when the others did. Hermione retired once she turned 75 quoting that she’d done what she set out to do, and it was time for a younger more idealistic soul to take her place and carry on the work of improving the world. He liked that she often helped him with grading papers now as she still did research for all of her fields. None of them mentioned the fact that she had several shrines in their house now that she lit candles for with nothing more than a thought anytime that something happened to any of them. And they didn’t mention that these shrines added in numbers every time that Luna had another child. </p>
<p>	Rabastan was never really working, so he didn’t ever really retire. However, when Luna’s oldest daughter turned 20 and was taking care of most of the sanctuary in her days, he stopped being the one to bring food to every animal. He figured that the magical creatures knew why too. Even wizards age. </p>
<p>	Draco retired around the same time as Hermione. He felt that he had done his part in making sure another generation of healers knew what they were doing, and he had no need to work himself into an early grave. He teased Severus constantly for still working, yet when McGonagall asked him to do a couple classes a year to show what healers could do, and he loved.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope everyone who has stuck around for the ending of this fic likes how I ended it. Thank you all for reading to this point.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>